


Earth-7010: Phase One

by Cacoethes (EvenEcho)



Series: Earth-7010 [1]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (but not in the way you guys are probably thinking), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers Compound, BAMF Natasha Romanov, BAMF Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Dark Tony Stark, F/F, F/M, Frigga (Marvel) Knows All, God Tony Stark, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, M/M, Magical Tony Stark, Maybe even a little evil Tony Stark, Multiverse, Nick Fury is Not Amused, Other, Pepper Potts Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Timeline What Timeline, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, but not really, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 43,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23741113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvenEcho/pseuds/Cacoethes
Summary: A god meets the Avengers -- chaos ensues.Where Tony Stark, a deity who took the place of himself in this universe, knows everything and has orchestrated a very complicated take down of Thanos because the last time he snapped his fingers to rid his universe of choice's big bad, the One Above All had a hissy fit, so now he hands his work over to others so he doesn't have to sit through another lecture for three centuries about his stupidity from some asshole in a golden chamber. Also, after thousands of years hopping from universe from universe and taking what he wanted, he was convinced to settle. Of course the universe he had chosen was going to be attacked by a Mad Titan, so now he has to deal with that chaos through vassals because apparently he was 'overpowered' and had to follow these things called 'laws' which are just plain stupid.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, Past Loki/Tony Stark
Series: Earth-7010 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710130
Comments: 25
Kudos: 119





	1. The Avengers

**Author's Note:**

> So, just a little tid bit, it's sort of Tony Stark, but not really. He comes from Earth-6029, an alternate universe where Tony Stark is actually a super deity that works between the Living Tribunal and the One Above All as a mega badass and pain in the ass. Also, I have Four Parts planned, but I have only gotten Phase One written because it's sort of hard between trying to make things cohesive and whatnot, so there are going to be typos and probably plot holes the longer it goes on, but hey, I'm taking the entire MCU, my favourite parts of each universe and mashing into one thing because I got the power, so yeah. It's not beta'd because I'm lazy but will never be happy with what I write so it's best if I don't skim over chapters like a mad man because then they'll never go anywhere. 
> 
> Also, God!Tony and Assassin!Tony things are my favourite, and I was inspired for some Godly Tony by Corvixa's fanfiction "Death's Merchant, Life's Guardian" which I highly recommend because it's really cool, but also sort of taken down my favourite darker route because why be a good guy when you can be an evil guy pretending to be a good guy? 
> 
> The X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Guardians of the Galaxy will definitely be in future installments, but not in this one. I just wanted to let you know about that in case you don't like them (to each their own, ya know?) and don't want to get involved with such a huge universe (although I doubt that's a real concern because the MCU is sorta huge).

Natasha’s POV

It wasn’t everyday she was sent out alone on her missions. She was very aware that the constant presence of Hawkeye, someone who considered her a friend, was mostly for the security of their organization. Who would be foolish enough to actually trust a Black Widow like her? Nobody. She wasn’t sure if she was pleased by their precaution or offended by their implication but either way, she had been given a home by SHIELD and even without her friend, she would do what needed to be done. Her assignment was handed to her, and she could do anything necessary to complete the mission packed cutely in an unsuspecting manila folder. 

That was how she ended up hovering a quinjet over a group of Germans. The four corners of their human square were more men, more Lokis. She didn’t know how that was possible, but she greatly disliked magic almost entirely because she couldn’t understand or effectively combat it. She was a realist and thus far, magic had only been something in fairytales. She certainly hadn’t expected some guy to come through earth in a portal and start fighting. That’s not how reality worked -- but now it did. 

She was on the jet with Captain America. She knew of him, heard the legends of course, but she was with him as she was with all people, distant but friendly. Nobody needed to know that she was just waiting to strike or gathering information to one day use against them to save herself. She was a Black Widow, and most would see her actions as cruel and callous, but to her, it was as simple as survival. 

Suddenly, Loki was surrendering, hands up as if he had been hurt and truly cowed. She could see right through his ploy, but the great Captain America cuffed him, nothing more than that, and brought him aboard the ship. She wasn’t sure how to react to that kind of stupidity, so she just hoped she wouldn’t be killed in the crossfire. Her skill would go to waste if she were to die now, after all this. 

“So, how’s SHIELD gonna take care of him? Do you know?” 

“I’m not privy to such information, Captain,” she said. “Director Fury will be taking the reins for this entire incident and whatever occurs next. As you’re aware, the Avengers Initiative is a go, so we’ll be fighting together from now on. I’m Natasha. It’s nice to meet you, by the way.” 

“Oh, okay. Well, I’m Steve Rogers then, uh, Captain America… they let you fight?” 

“I’m their best agent.” 

“But… you’re a woman. Even Peggy had to fight to--” 

“Trust me, I fought my fair share to get where I am today, and I spared nobody in the process. I’d like for you to understand something, Captain Rogers: we’re a team now. So, I think we should start our new friendship without something as stupid as the gender customs of the forties, alright?” He didn’t reply to her, and that was fine with her. Allow him to think things over. This wasn’t a time where he could step in with his outdated customs and hope for the best. Of all people, she wouldn’t tolerate that unless it was absolutely necessary for her mission. Being the only female on the team wasn’t a new idea, she had been on several ‘teams’ where she was the only female, and as it turns out, she had a streak of being the most efficient and vicious in battle, and the most vindictive and cagey when it came to interpersonal relationships. Her interpersonal skills were great, but her ability to maintain connections with people who could never understand her or her motivation drove a hard wedge between her and everyone not a Black Widow that she knew. A Black Widow or a Wolf Spider, really, although she had only met one Wolf Spider and they had fought to the death. 

Clearly, she was victorious. 

Nobody wanted to be around her for extended periods of time, not her as she really was. They wanted Natasha, the fun, snarky, spy that could always be relied on to get the job done without any complaints no matter what it was. They didn’t want the bitter, realistic, cautious, slightly paranoid, rude, and mean weapon that she truly was. They wanted to ignore her past transgressions, and she wanted to hide them so that she could work further for better purposes. She may never be able to hold a normal job, not with her life, and she doubted she could ever have normal relationships, but she was very good at the things she was trained to do. To kill and sacrifice everything but her life for the mission, unless it was an order that specifically said her life was less valuable than the target (so far, she had never encountered a mission like that -- she was one of the three Black Widows left alive, they couldn’t let her die. They’d be down a soldier). 

“Uh, alright. What about you? You’ve been awfully quiet.” 

Outside the quinjet a storm came from nowhere, and suddenly a flash of lightning nearly blinded her as she tried to fly through the harsh rain and dark vision that even her lights couldn’t cut through. Loki didn’t reply, but then another bolt of lightning struck close by since the thunder followed so quickly after. She almost wanted to set them on the ground for now, but she could do this. She had to do this. Loki was valuable for his knowledge and his power, his scepter was something SHIELD wanted to procure, and she had been assigned with getting it from him no matter how she had to do it, without the other few Avengers knowing. 

The only other Avengers on the team would be Clint (although he was currently out of commision apparently), herself, a modern Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Steve Rogers. A rather pathetic team that she already knew she would be required to carry. 

“What? You’re so big and bad, threatening defenseless humans, but you’re scared of a little thunder?” Steve’s tone was mocking, and Natasha wanted to slap him and tell him that’s the stupidest thing he could do. They should appease and give into Loki’s sense of superiority, act as though you agreed that he’d make a good ruler, appeal to his ego, and a world of possibilities would open for them. 

“I’m not overly fond of what follows.” 

What follows the thunder? Oh shit!

She jerked the jet to the side, trying to change course and keep them from being predictable. She had learned of another Asgardian from Clint. Apparently Thor, God of Thunder, was a real guy and Loki was his brother. Of course he’d show up to help them or help Loki, and neither option seemed like a good thing to her. Despite her swerving, a heavy thud landed on the roof. There was a softer drop, and she doubted anyone but herself heard it since it was closer to the front. She turned back around to see that the ramp was pulled off the jet and tossed like a piece of foam before a man grabbed Loki and jumped off the jet. Rogers was quick to follow, fumbling with a parachute before he finally threw it to the side, and took a running start before jumping, his shield in his hands. 

She was surrounded by idiots! She went to land, but then there was someone behind her. In a single motion she pressed the button to maintain the flight while she turned. The muzzle of her handgun fit perfectly between the man’s eyes. A very pretty man with pointed ears and a smile revealing extremely sharp teeth, almost vampirelike in nature. She really hoped she wasn’t going to deal with any vampires. Things were simply going crazy. 

“And who might you be?” the man asked, as if he wasn’t phased by the gun to his skill at all. Perhaps he wasn’t, but if he thought she wouldn’t pull the trigger, he was wrong. 

“Black Widow.” 

“How rare it is to find a spider in the form of a woman. Take my suggestion to stay away from humanity. I offer because no matter how beneficial you may seem, in the end, their luck will fade, and you will be crushed on their sleeve. Flee from the shield that burdens you, and then I may offer you a place in my home, Black Widow.” 

“ _ What _ are you?” she asked. She was hellbent to ignore what he just said, but even she could hear the warning. Stay away from everyone, leave SHIELD because they are crushing her with rules and placations, and as soon as she is no longer useful, they will do as humans do and get rid of the trash. She didn’t want to think about how he knew that, but she agreed with it even if she was planning to pretend she never heard it. 

“What are you?” 

She would have shot him out of frustration, but she also realized that he had come with Thor, a Norse god, and that meant he was powerful in some way otherwise he wouldn’t be there. So, she lowered her gun and looked up at him, trying to take in his posture. Brown hair, curly and short, brown eyes with a bit of blue and gold creating something extremely inhuman in that feature alone. His teeth, of course, also made him seem dangerous, almost as sharp as his smirk. 

“Won’t you go to help Thor?” she asked. Where did this man’s loyalties lay, and why wasn’t he helping Thor? Why was he here with her? She turned back around, tense because he was behind her. He moved to sit in the empty chair beside her. She focused on getting the plane landed so she could go make sure nobody killed each other. Idiots, all of them. 

“My purpose has been fulfilled. I bring him to your land, so now the valkyries will never ride for me again.” His expression changed to something like anger, his teeth tight together and a corner of his lip twitching upwards before he looked back at her. “Prince Thor must fulfill his debt, or the Aesir will be rendered powerless in my court.” 

“So you’re a God, too, then? I’ve only met Loki thus far, and I’m honestly not impressed.” She landed the jet on the ground and stood up, looking over the man. He also stood, his chest brushing against her own. He was just barely the same height as her. Meanwhile both Thor and Loki towered over even Captain America. She used her closeness to press her body against his. “What are you the god of?” 

“Libertinism, knowledge, war, smithing, magic -- but most just know me as the God of Death.” 

She faltered, for the first time in years she was truly taken aback by his answer. His smirk got sharper, and he raised a calloused hand to touch her cheek. Despite the callouses, his hands were still small and delicate, she didn’t understand how it was possible, but they were, and his long, clear nails were shaped into dull points. When they brushed against her skin, she knew that they weren’t like her own nails. If he wanted to, he could cut someone with his nails alone, he could slit her throat without any weapons other than his own body. He was, in a sense, a weapon like her. Perhaps that’s why Thor brought him along. 

“You don’t look very scary to me.” 

“Of course I don’t, darling. You’re familiar with the array of faces in an arsenal for human deception. We’re both daggers cast away for swords, yet in the end we stand as the superior weapons.” He reached out, one hand on her hip, the other running up into her short hair. He held her lower back, and she was almost sure that whatever he thought was going to happen would be something she could use to her advantage, his seeming desire for whatever it is she could offer, but then he was on the other side of the ship, sitting with his legs crossed where Loki once sat. He held the gun from the holster at her lower back and the knife from her belt. How did he…? 

Despite feeling extremely on edge by the man’s abilities to get an upper hand on her, she walked out of the jet, only armed with the gun in her hand, and the knife in her boot (thankfully he hadn’t taken that from her) and walked onto the cliff overlooking a bunch of destroyed trees resting down and dead on the ground. 

“Gentlemen!” she shouted. Their spat stopped with her voice and she nodded to where Loki was still resting, closer to the cliff’s edge and warily staring at the man in the jet. She turned back to them and nodded towards the ship. “We’ve got a prisoner to put in a secure location. We can discuss our next steps when we’ve gotten him checked in.” 

To say that everyone was uncomfortable around the nameless man on the bench was an understatement. Steve was glaring at him like he was someone that offended his sensibilities despite having not said anything, Loki had actually sat beside Thor, pressed against his side and away from the man, and Thor simply watched the man with the attentiveness of a spy scrutinizing the man’s every movement. 

It was silent on board for a good thirty minutes before the man walked back up to her, Loki flinched when he passed him by, and sat on the seat to her right. He held her weapons in his lap. 

“I can offer you better knives, better firearms as well. I am the greatest smith all worlds know. I surpass even those that tamper with dying stars, and the younglings who bring creation from the primordial abyss in the sky. You deserve such gifts if only to accentuate your underlying skill. Nobody wants to see you erode like a cliff destroyed by mindless, innately destructive brine. As it is, with weapons as poor as these, it speaks of your ability to adapt and use even the these as viable instruments of destruction.” 

“Hmm…,” she said. “How old are you, if I may ask?” 

“Older than the Celestials.” 

There were two gasps from behind her, but she tried to ignore them. The noise brought a smile to the man’s face. He looked at them, moving on his eyes before his gaze landed back on her. 

“I don’t know what the Celestials are, but I assume that they’re older than Thor and Loki, right?” He nodded. “Well perhaps you are the best at what you do, but how do you know that I’m the best at what I do?” 

“You’re not the best,” he said. Natasha recovered in under a second from that, not outwardly showing her confusion. Then who was the best? Was it  _ him _ ? The silent soldier who once trained her, the one who later shot through her as if she meant nothing, as if her own mission was unimportant, like he had no true empathy -- which he may not have, come to think of it. He was a cruel taskmaster, but he made her the greatest graduate of both programs, and for that she would remain thankful, otherwise, she did not like him and she certainly didn’t trust him. “In fact, you already know of the semi-mortal I speak of. You’re the second best, though, and even that is enough to warrant my attention and guidance. You’ve unwittingly served me well in the past. Allow me to gift you something for your exceptional abilities.”  _ And loyalty _ \-- went unsaid, but she heard it all the same. His eyes bore into her almost as cruelly and apathetic as the soldier’s, but there was life in his eyes, a kind of life and joy that she had never seen before, and certainly never experienced on her own. 

“A gift?” Loki asked from behind them. His voice was raised, and his tone was cruel and mocking. She returned her focus to the window to properly fly. She could maintain and keep them safe without being clearly alert, but she was always prepared for fast movements and running. It was in her nature as someone who would do anything to survive another day. 

If he wanted her loyalty, then he would be sadly let down. He must know that she was loyal to herself unless they proved worthy enough to use her skills for the things she could truly agree with. SHIELD was a placeholder for the time being, and it seemed that this man already knew what it was doing to her. How it was minimizing her skill, and weakening her honed talents by keeping her from living up and working to her true potential. 

But  _ how did he know _ ? That was the main question. If he could read her mind, then she would be horrified, and extremely offended. 

“Yes, godling,  _ a gift _ .” 

“You think she’s worthy? A mortal harlot?” She could picture Loki, despite having seemed so calm, looking enraged, practically foaming at the mouth. From her peripheral vision, she saw that his tone didn’t seem to affect the stranger at all, in fact, he looked almost like he had when he spoke to her, except now, he seemed entirely unamused by Loki’s antics. “Perhaps your standards have dropped seeing as I--” 

“You are and never will be anything but a stepping stone for greater beings to use and discard like the meaningless waste you are.” 

She was stunned, and the silence from Loki led her to believe he was also stunned. 

“And I happen to know of a certain  _ sannsorðinn _ who yearned for a special blade of his own,” the man said. This must have been an insult, and the use of a word even Natasha had never heard before made her feel like it was in a dead language, because Thor immediately started shouting. 

“Do you dare say such things about my brother? His is a Prince of Asgard, as you well know, and this is a slight against not only Loki, but myself and the Allfather. Your crimes shall be punished once we are back--” 

“Never did I mention Loki, technically. Is that how  _ you _ see your brother? To think and assume I said such a thing about him is entirely inappropriate for a being of your standing,  _ my Prince _ .” Natasha was led to believe that Loki was definitely the one the man was talking about, and that he never did and never will see Thor as a Prince of anything. This being was out of Thor’s league. She read the reports from New Mexico, and she had been uncomfortable with the idea of such strong people waiting to possibly attack their planet, but this strange man? He was beyond all of them, and she felt a sadistic twist of hope that out of everyone  _ he _ noticed that she was, if not the best, the second best at what she did compared to the entire world -- or if he was a god, perhaps even to the others he had met. 

“That wanton  _ ergi _ got his blade, didn’t he?” 

Nobody responded to the man. 

“Didn’t he?” he restated, and this time it felt heavier, like there was something controlling and extremely dangerous bleeding through his tone. Then, there was a small, humiliated noise. 

“He did,” Loki said, although it sounded smaller and more broken than she had ever heard, which was even more shocking considering it came from a god. Thor had yet to speak again, and Steve had been dead silent this entire time, which was odd in itself, but perhaps he just didn’t understand what was happening just yet. 

“But, like I said.” He was speaking with her again. “I’ll make it for you as a  _ gift _ . I don’t need payment from you, for this.” 

They faded back into silence, the rain had lightened up before, but once again, the storm began to rage outside their jet. She managed to fly into the Atlantic, finally, and as soon as Thor was engaged in conversation by Steve, the rain let up, and the clouds dispersed within seconds. She waited for Steve to take Thor and Loki out of the jet, they had to jump down because the ramp had been torn from its hinges and thrown back when they were in Belgium. She waited for the man to leave the jet, but he seemed to wait behind her, finally forcing her to move lest she keep her back to him and get stabbed because of it. She turned as soon as she was off the jet and saw that he was already to the right of her, leaning against the jet’s black body. He ran his fingertips over the metal, shredding it with his fingernails. 

“This is a helicarrier, isn’t it?” he asked. 

“It is,” she said. She had no idea how he knew that, how he could possibly know that, but he nodded and started walking, following behind Thor, Loki, and Steve. Natasha had dropped Dr. Banner off here hours before Germany, trying to analyze him and keep him in the safest place. Somewhere he wouldn’t shape shift into the hulking monster that would effectively tear their ship apart. She followed behind them and once they were inside the building and heading down the elevators, she realized that, once again, the man from before wasn’t there anymore. She looked at Thor, since it was him he came with. 

“Who’s your friend?” she asked. Thor looked down at her and then straight ahead like he was greatly offended by her insinuation of friendship. What an idiot. She’d kill to be ‘friends’ with someone that powerful. He shredded the omnium plating and titanium base of the quinjet’s surface with his  _ fingernails _ like it was nothing. He was clearly powerful, and from what she was getting from him was that he spoke so much and twisted things around so bizarrely that he would likely confuse people into thinking he said something different. She had a feeling that a gift from him was clearly a huge deal, so many people must make trades for his wares instead, like Loki seemingly had. 

“His name is Anthony. Fandral of The Warriors Three recommended I ask him for safe travel to Midgard to save my brother. All I know is that he’s older than my father and existed before my father’s grandfather was beget, and he’s a  _ seidmadr _ , like Loki” 

“You defend me then, yet you call me a  _ seidmadr _ when we’re with those you consider allies? Is it because they are ignorant to your slights? Do you purposefully decide when and who can insult me? The Warriors Three, Lady Sif, and yourself have no issues being cruel, but as soon as Anthony, who did indeed give me the greatest dagger--” Thor slapped Loki, and Natasha was honestly not expecting that. 

“You know it was different. He _ implied _ he used your body. I’m simply referring to your preference for tricks rather than true fighting in battle… you didn’t actually do what he suggested?” Loki didn’t reply. “For a simple dagger?!” Once again, Loki didn’t say anything. Thor let out a deep sigh. “I understand you have no shame, but for your family you could, at the very least, try to retain some honor.” 

Thankfully, the elevator doors opened up into the main room. The majority of the floor was full of people at computers and people walking around checking and making sure the ship was ready and prepared for lifting into the sky. A group of guards took Loki away, and Natasha led Steve and Thor towards the briefing room where Fury and Coulson should already be. They sat around the table, and she thought back to the possibility of Thor saying something stupid and setting off Dr. Banner, who would take this ship and everyone on it down with him in the event he did take control. A moment later Anthony was sitting at the table, on the chair across from her, legs crossed, picking at his perfect nails like he hadn’t just teleported in while they were passing out all the files they had on the situation. 

“Who the fuck is this?” Director Fury asked. She sighed. This was going to be a long day. 

“That is Anthony,” she said, meeting the man’s eyes only to be rewarded with another smirk. “He’s the one who brought Thor from Asgard to aid us in capturing Loki and gaining control of the artifact he stole.” 

“What do you think of him, in your professional opinion?” he asked her. She looked back up at Anthony who was staring at her like this was a test of some sort. She took a deep breath. 

“He has, so far, mentioned few things about himself, but in my professional opinion, he can be a very strong ally or a very dangerous threat, and in my personal opinion, he will help us in this matter. Any further than this issue, I have no way of knowing, but I feel confident that he will try and assist us with finding the tesseract.” 

“You know him, Thor. What do you think?” Fury steepled his fingers and leaned over the table, his single eye glaring at Anthony like he was the scum of the earth. 

“I barely know him, but I dislike him greatly.” 

“Well, he is quite rude,” Steve added. 

“He’s also sitting at your rather curious round table,” Anthony said. “And I can solve all your problems before they twist themselves and grow into monstrosities you can’t even imagine handling. Would you like for me to do that?” 

Director Fury looked to her, as if she somehow bonded and could read the guy any better than he could. Yes, she was fond of him so far, but at the same time, his wording made everything sound a little… off. She shrugged her shoulders in response because what else was she going to do? 

“How would you do that?” 

“Simply.” 

“Goddammit, he’s worse than Barton. Fine, can you tell me what you’d do in order to fix our little problem?” Fury asked, this time he seemed to be talking to Anthony as if he were the same as Clint, but Natasha knew they were very, very different. Clint had a ‘fuck it’ sort of attitude where he brushed things off and snarked at Director Fury because he knew he could get away wit it. Anthony had a sort of power that meant he could crush his opponents like bugs under his boot, and he could do it with style and finesse. The worst part was that Anthony knew all of that, he knew how strong he was, and he could expertly read things. It was honestly terrifying to think of someone like that existing. 

“How about this: I fix your problem, and you’ll owe me a boon of my choosing at the time of my choosing. Do you agree?” 

“Lord Fury, I greatly advise you against his offer. He is almost as skilled as Loki in his lies, and he will force you into positions too great for you to handle. Please, allow us to solve this the right way, the honourable way,” Thor said. Director Fury looked conflicted, but he, for some reason, nodded to Thor and made it clear he stood beside him. “Perhaps Anthony could assist with the magical aspects of things?” 

“I’m not an imbecile, I can understand their technology just as easily.” Anthony stood up and walked around the desk. “Now, take me to the scepter and the information and I will fix your problems  _ out of the goodness of my heart _ .” Something about that made Natasha feel like this was out of the exact opposite reason. No, with Anthony, there was nothing good left in his heart. He was a predator, a hunter, and everyone was prey. And the only one who could tell seemed to be her, but he doubted Director Fury would stay in the dark about his own security for much longer. 

***

When they got to the room containing Dr. Banner, he was bent over poking at the scepter. Anthony walked around the man as if he had no idea he could turn into a giant green rage monster, which was a possibility, but something gave Natasha the distinct impression that he knew more about every single one of them than he let on. He walked to the screen and started tapping and pulling things apart like he was a natural. Dr. Banner stood up to say something, but he stopped and tilted his head to the side upon seeing what Anthony was doing. 

“Hello,” Dr. Banner said. “I’m Dr. Bruce Banner, and I’m surprised I’ve never had the pleasure to meet you, Dr…?” 

“Dr. Stark.” 

Everyone but Thor looked around at each other. Even Dr. Banner looked like he had seen a ghost. The Stark family was killed during World War II, and their company had been left to… it had been left to a sect of the family that had since remained in hiding from the public eye but managed to create the best weapons and other devices available around the world. They were a multi-billion dollar company, and the mysterious Dr. Stark who ran the entire operation was worth trillions just from his genius and company alone. 

“Dr. Stark as in…?” 

“Anthony Edward.” 

“You mean to tell me you’ve been magical and living on our planet for the past sixty years doing shit-ass nothing about our major world issues?” Director Fury asked. Anthony shrugged and went back to what he was doing. Director Fury made his way to her, although she was focused entirely on the being that kept getting more and more complex the longer she looked at him. Everything was screaming different things about him. His nonchalant demeanor about everything, but then his shoulders were loose, his knees were locked, his fingers were curling and fidgeting at his sides, but his body was otherwise still, but with every movement he moved long and wide in flamboyant and graceful displays before he resumed the loose-tense position again. His facial expressions flitted through like slides of a stop motion animation, but somehow blended seamlessly in the long term. The near-constant smile never reached his eyes, and when it did, it was directed at her. His frowns made him loom over them like he grew into a twelve foot behemoth, but then his features lightened up and he would return to being this non-threatening, little-man facade. 

“Hey, cut that out!” Steve shouted, grabbing Anthony’s wrist from where he had been poking at Dr. Banner’s body in all his squishy places, like his stomach, sides, underarms, hips, and cheeks. Anthony whipped around and threw his hand away from him. Dr. Banner took his glasses off, wiping the nervous sweat from his brow before rubbing his fingers over his eyes like he was exhausted. The bags under his eyes spoke loud enough for him, he needed to get some sleep. 

“Why should I?” 

“You know damn well why. What happens if the Hulk comes out, no offense, Doctor.” 

“None taken?” Dr. Banner let out a huff-like laugh before putting his glasses back on and glaring at Natasha like she’d done something wrong. “After all, I’m sure if I even twitch suspiciously,  _ someone _ will point a gun at me.” 

“It was for my safety. I know what you, or rather your other form, can do and I didn’t want to risk myself in a fight should it occur.” 

“Bullets don’t really stop him sweetheart.” He sounded so cruel, so different from the mild mannered, nervous doctor she had seen so far. “Put a gun in my mouth, and then next thing I know he spitting out bullets and killing children in Thailand!” 

“Your people are all so tiny, and petty,” Thor said, although she couldn’t really focus on his bullshit when Dr. Banner was glaring at her like he wanted to strangle her. 

“Do you see us going to your planet and blowing your shit up?” Director Fury said, honing in on Thor. She looked away from Dr. Banner, she didn’t have the time or patience to fight with him. She needed to get everyone to calm down, but she had no idea how to even begin. 

“--always so clever, aren’t you? You’re nothing more than a bully.” 

“I’m a true immortal with powers beyond human comprehension. Everything special about you came from a bottle,” Anthony said. He moved back, fluidly when Steve threw a punch, and he stepped back, easily dodging Captain America’s Nazi-punching fists as they moved and practically walked in a circle before Natasha realized that the scepter’s light and rythmic pulsing grew the louder and anrgier they got. She picked up the scepter and dropped it on the ground. Everyone looked up at her from where they were fighting, or in Bruce’s case, going green at his temples. 

“What the hell, Natasha? You could’ve killed us! You don’t know what that thing’s capable of,” Steve said. He walked to the scepter, but before he could grab it, Anthony pulled him back like he weighed nothing and picked the scepter up himself. Unlike her, he didn’t put it down or drop it, he held it vertically and looked over its features. When Steve attempted to grab his shoulder, just as he hand made contact with his body, a spark of golden energy sent him on his ass. She and Director Fury had their guns aimed at him in a second, and even Thor had his hammer out to be used to fight. 

“It’s so beautiful,” Anthony said. He whispered this, as if he was offering prayers to the angels. “Not my greatest creation, but it’s certainly the prettiest scepter of my repertoire.” 

“Wait a minute, you created that thing?” Director Fury pointed at the scepter in his hands, and Anthony nodded. 

“I created this while Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel.” 

“That was… a really long time ago?” Steve looked around for confirmation. She shook her head. Just when Natasha thought he had a few brain cells letting him know he needed to shut up, he goes and speaks. 

“I made it for Norrin Radd before he was stripped of his Cosmic Power,” Anthony said, reaching up to touch the glowing bulb in the middle. He crushed it under his fingers and pulled a yellow stone from inside of it. Thor went to tackle him, and the gold energy around Anthony flung him back as well before he took the stone and stuck it into thin air, his arm disappearing like it was beneath something, but there was nothing there, and then he pulled his hand back, the yellow stone missing. 

“Do you know what you’ve done?!” Thor shouted, getting up from the floor. He adjusted his ridiculous cape. 

“Yes. I’ve collected the mind stone and hidden it from those who wish to use it to harm us. I’ve been living in this universe since before these  _ relics _ were sparked to life, I think I know what I’m handling. But do you?” Thor slowly started to walk towards him while Anthony spoke and without looking, Anthony raised his fingers, catching Thor’s neck with a chain of gold. “Trust me to do what’s best, godling. It’s my home too.” 

Director Fury looked between all of them. 

“Well, how are we gonna deal with the Loki mess?” 

“Well, considering he’s cooperated in his own imprisonment, I’m sure he’s thought of some ‘clever’ plan to attack this ship while you’re all busy fighting. Thankfully I designed this ship and can reinforce the few weak points I left for emergencies. Thor, I need you and Rogers to wait for the inevitable attack. Natalia, sweetest dove, I need you to guard Loki’s cage, you’re the more equipped to fight with those meant to release him and even Loki himself. I will go to retrieve the tesseract and make sure that it is hidden too-- not a word from you, Director, it’s too dangerous for humanity to have just yet,” he said. He stood in the same spot before he put his hands on his hips and looked at them all. “What are you waiting for? Your orders are given. Best be getting to your stations now.” 

And like that, she and the others, except for Dr. Banner, who remained in the room by himself, and a broken scepter, they left. She went to Loki’s cage, as she was instructed, and felt for the first time -- she was getting the credit she deserved. She was the one told to guard the god, not Thor, an Asgardian, but her. She was flattered and discontented at the same time. Anthony knew a lot about her, too much perhaps, but perhaps he would prove to be the hand that understands her capabilities and acts accordingly, never too close, never too far, just keeping her steady as she was trained to do. To follow. 

How quaint. 

***

Loki paced in the glass cage like a caged animal. Sleek like a panther, but with all the ferocity in his body as an outraged lion. He didn’t speak to her, and she kept her back to him despite it feeling wrong to do so. She had her arms crossed over her chest, still, and she doubted she would be dropping them unless she was fighting. She kept vigilant and aware of everything. She heard ruckus from above them, and she knew that something was happening, but she had no idea what it could be. 

“--insufferable behemoth. Idiots, all of them. They’re simple pigs in men’s clothing, and who is better, who is the best among them? Myself, of course. But do they see this? No, never. Loki the forgotten, useless, spare, malevolent,  _ argr _ prince. Only Thor, the golden child and perfect Son of Odin can do anything right, even when he does so blatantly wrong and worms his way out of punishment. I would be impressed if he used some skill to escape the consequences, but he doesn’t even do that. Odin just lets him go because he can do no wrong, and where am I stuck? Here. On this giant ball of disgusting mud! With you filthy mortals milling about as if you have any idea of what is supposed to happen!” 

Loki had been ranting for the better part of twenty minutes now, repeating the same hatred towards Asgard and his ‘family’ while letting his dislike of Earth be heard far and wide. Why would he want to rule a race of people he hated so much? She didn’t understand at all, but he was his own sort of crazy. The kind that was incurable and all consuming. 

Suddenly, there was a bang behind her. She turned, but it was only Loki’s fist slammed against the glass. 

“And then  _ he _ showed up. How  _ dare _ he stand against me! I am Loki, Prince of Jotunheim, and he dares sully my name and talent with his own outrageous skills. He’s a liar, far more than even myself. He’s not genuine, he doesn’t understand the concept of family or companionship, nor does he know a thing about camaraderie or teamwork. He’s an ancient monster cast out by the multiverse for his crimes for a reason. You, little spider woman, let your Gods protect you from whatever he wants you for. He will use you and he will take everything you can offer and then he will Throw. You. Away. He may be a creator of weapons, but he’s still a deathless harbinger of war and evil incarnate. Everything is done for a greater purpose, and you don’t wish to be a part of his!” 

She turned her back to him once again and continued to listen to him rant. She wouldn’t admit that his words unsettled her, but there was no time to analyze that here. For now she would do as she was commanded and succeed in her mission with an above average performance. She expected no reward or praise since a weapon wouldn’t expect those things, but she knew that they would all be thankful for her competency since she doubted any of the others, except maybe Anthony, could do as she could. 

Then, the sounds got closer until the door leading to the room she was in was thrown open. Clint immediately shot at her, and she dodged, rolling to her side and using that momentum to launch forward, twisting in the air as he shot another. She crashed on her side, and pulled him to the ground by his ankle. He shot yet another arrow and she rolled out of the way before grabbing his bow and tossing it behind her. She had to fight against his hand-to-hand, which he was proficient in, but he was not nearly as trained as herself. She got hit twice, a jab of his fingers to the delicate part in her side at her waist, right beneath her ribs, and then her jaw, snapping her teeth together. She bit a sliver off the tip of her tongue before she got on her feet, pulled him up and smashed his head into the railing. 

She was about to do it a second time, and a third because her tongue hurt, but he reached up to pry at her hands. 

“Nat! Nat!?” 

“Clint?” She didn’t loosen her grip on him until he looked to the side and then back over his shoulder at her. His sickly, electric blue eyes were now back to their softer, cocoa colour. She still didn’t want to take any chances, but she didn’t want to break her friend’s skull in either. “What did you write on the cake for my first birthday?” 

“I told them to write ‘daggers for days’ but it came out as ‘Jagger’s fortieth’ and I still don’t know how it happened. It was in Idaho -- I know the guy spoke English!” 

She dropped her grip on him and nodded. Cognitive recalibration -- hitting him on the head -- worked. That was good to know. She stepped back and kicked the bow away from him when he went to pick it up. He raised an eyebrow and she picked his bow up and put it over her shoulder. 

“You might be fine now, but I’m not risking anything. Who else was here for the attack?” 

“Just a few agents, but I think… oh, shit! I think I saw the Hulk on my way over here.” 

She didn’t want to go and attempt to stand near the Hulk, but she also didn’t want to stay here for Loki to rant at her anymore. She had been told to watch and guard Loki, so she would, but she wanted to keep Clint nearby but also far away from Loki, so she was put in a tight place. Eventually, her need to succeed on the task assigned outweighed her attachment to the archer and she handed him the bow, albeit reluctantly. 

“Go find Anthony. You’ll know him when you see him. He’s not human. He can help.” 

“But I thought--” 

“My task is to guard the prisoner, and I refuse to fail such a simple order.” 

He nodded and left, seeming like he understood her need to stay put. She turned back to Loki who stared at her, like he couldn’t understand her motivation at all, but then he smiled at her, his eyes crinkling in proof he had a real sort of happiness, but his smile was nothing pleasant. He looked at her like he knew something she didn’t and was extremely amused by her lack of information. 

“You’ve already been swayed, how precious. I wonder why he was drawn to you, of all people. A mortal woman, you’re not exactly his type, and I can hardly see any skill of yours that surpasses my own, certainly not his--” 

“I do hope nothing too challenging happened while I was away,” Anthony said from behind her. She turned to see him standing in front of the closed door. It didn’t look like it had been opened since Clint left. He walked forward with all the grace and poise of a jaguar. “You’re still healthy, and your limbs seemed perfectly fine, still attached at their origin. Did Loki say anything too threatening? He’s just a puppy. All you have to do is bop him on the nose with a newspaper, or a  _ brick _ , and he’ll back away. Right, puppy?” Anthony’s attention was focused solely on Loki, their eyes were matched and neither of them blinked. “We’re going to let this pup out of his cage for now. Do you have an issue against my judgement, Natalia?” His eyes were still on Loki despite him clearly having addressed her. She didn’t know what to make of this beyond the fact that Loki was entranced by Anthony, like a mouse before the cobra struck. 

“You know him more than myself. I trust your judgement,  _ Tony _ .” 

“Excellent,” Anthony said. He waved his hand and the gears in the doors hissed and unlocked, the computer keeping the cage lit and otherwise stable fried, hissing and sparking until the fire burnt out from the wires. The door opened and Loki stepped out of the cage. He skirted around Anthony and continued to walk, purposely slamming his side against hers as he walked before he teleported in a blink of green just before he hit the closed door. Anthony turned to her. “I tried my hardest to stop him, but he outwitted me. Do you understand?” 

“What if I don’t?” She raised her chin, her shoulders tensing as his gaze fell on her. Nothing in his expression gave away anything more than the fact he was observing her, and that he was slightly amused. He always seemed to be amused by the antics of those around him. Was there anything that could phase him? 

“If that’s what you want then I can’t stop you.” 

“But it is within your power to stop me.” 

“It is and I could, but I won’t.” He tapped his fingers against his cheek, “Are you really willing to compromise a potential ally for a group of imbeciles playing pretend?” She inhaled sharply. 

He had a point. Fury’s ideas of a superhero team, of the Avengers Initiative, sounded pretty on paper, but the reality would be difficult to maintain, even more so between people as strong headed as some of them. No, it would crash and burn. It was inevitable to fail, the only question was how long it would take. “You’re too talented to make such a foolish misstep. So, I tried my damndest to stop Loki, but I was rendered incapable of the horrible tales he weaved of our past…  _ affair _ . I couldn’t do anything but allow him to escape without ripping the heart from my chest. Do we understand each other?” 

“I understand, and I accept your boundaries.” 

She didn’t drop her chin, but he approached her, and ran his thumb over her bottom lip and down her chin. 

“I don’t have boundaries, I have flexible limitations, but for now you may believe whatever you want. I have a purpose on this planet. You’re a refreshing presence I hadn’t thought I’d be able to see. We’ll be going to my tower, an office building in Manhattan. I’ll meet you and your unfortunate ensemble there.” 

Anthony stepped back and disappeared in a wave of blue magic that was there just as shortly as it faded and a minute amount of ash fell on the railings of the walkway. She dusted the ground with her heel before rushing to tell the Avengers what happened. She was sure she understood Anthony’s ‘boundaries’ as she put it, but she had no idea what his motivation for assisting in this matter came from. She had no idea what the man was truly planning either, and that both drew her closer and made her cautious to approach at the same time. 

There was one thing she knew about Anthony, though, and it was that he knew that she saw herself as a weapon, and rather than offering placations and words to try and soothe her icy, metallic mind into something more human, he accepted it without a second glance. He understood, and that wasn’t something she ever thought she’d find outside of someone else like herself. And Anthony was proving to be both very much like her, but very different as well. Hopefully those differences weren’t the be all that ends all with whatever relationship they were building. 

***

Stark Industries had a tower filled with offices for a variety of branches dedicated to the smooth running of the company as a whole. The building was an office building for lawyers, bookkeepers, the CEO, and other such figures. Those that created items were as hidden away as the mysterious Dr. Stark who designed and ran the company from the shadows. Virginia Potts was the CEO, and Natasha very quickly explained why she needed to be on the roof. Instead of scorn, the woman understood and sent her to the roof with permission to do anything necessary to stop whatever threat warranted her visit. 

On the roof, Loki was standing beside Dr. Erik Selvig, a man that was recruited in place of Dr. Jane Foster, who wanted nothing to do with their work so she could focus on the bifrost and the powers needed to take her to Asgard. Natasha had never met either in person, but she had read plenty of reports from Thor’s original visit. She hadn’t been keen on meeting the man. And as she suspected before he barged into their jet, she didn’t like him. 

She was the only one on the roof, since the rest of the Avengers were on the ground fighting the insect-like aliens flooding from a giant hole in the sky. She didn’t know how to stop him, and she had no idea how she could truly compete with Loki like this, but she knew she would do her best and if her efforts proved lethal, she would disengage and lick her wounds. This was not a mission that was worth her life, so survival was an entirely logical option to keep in mind if he got the upper hand. 

“He sent you to do his bidding, spider. I’m offended he assumes I’ll even think about sparing your life. Perhaps putting you out of your misery would be a gift rather than growing loyal to such a being,” Loki said, turning away from Selvig and walking towards her. He had no staff, but in his right hand, a beautiful black blade formed in a flash of green. She stared at it. Was that the dagger Anthony had made for him? 

“Yet you fight with his weapon.” 

“But I paid the price. It’s mine -- no longer does he have any right to it.” Loki walked around her, and she pulled her own combat knife from her side and circled him. They walked around, and around until he stepped closer, which is when she stepped back. He attempted to step forward again, and instead of stepping back, she reached out to grab his left wrist and pulled him. He was heavier than any human she had ever fought, but he couldn’t weigh more than a normal man, could he? She flipped him over her shoulder and he sliced the back of her ankle when he was on the ground. She fell to the ground, aware that she was forced on her knees for the rest of the fight. He moved to his feet, backing away from her as she situated herself on her knees. He stood behind her, not moving, but she could hear his heartbeat and breath. He came forward, and she threw her body on the ground, he stumbled forward, catching himself just as she cut his own ankle and dropped him to the ground. 

For a god, he seemed clumsy in battle, but maybe the cape and heavy helmet weighed him down. She could see him being stealthy in a fight, like a shadow taking out all the targets while the fighters like Thor took all the glory. 

Perhaps she should have thought it possible, but Loki ran a hand over his ankle and the skin closed, the thick leather boot closed as well, as if nothing had hurt him. He stood up. 

“You’ll have to do better than that to knock me down.” 

Instead of replying, she kept her eyes sharp on him, and tried to figure out where Anthony was and how exactly they could close that portal. She had switched her comms off because she couldn’t focus on the static while she fought Loki, who had hundreds of years of practice and magic on his side. She felt foolish for allowing herself to be grounded at the first strike. Pathetic, even, but she wasn’t going to die here. No, she wouldn’t let herself die here. 

Loki walked around her and reached forward to grab her hair and pull her off the ground, his chest against her back. She reached one hand up to hold his arm and pull herself up so he didn’t rip out her hair and also leverage herself on his arm. He went to throw her, but her arm hooked with his, and she used the forced to swing around and drop him on his side, damaging her own side in the process. She couldn’t walk, but she could use her thighs, and she wrapped them around his head and squeezed, grabbing a struggling arm and slicing his wrist horizontally. Did she want to kill him? No, so she would leave a vertical cut for later. The knife with the dagger came up and stabbed her in the side of her hip, but she grabbed his wrist and sliced that one as well. She tossed his knife away and held her own between her teeth as she held Loki’s arms up, and hopefully at an angle he couldn’t use his magic to heal himself. 

Despite his position, Loki struggled, and the blood running down his wrists seemed to truly be doing the trick. Every time they went to scab over, she dug her fingers into the wounds to reopen the cuts. He wasn’t dying, but he was surely worn out and dizzy from losing blood. She held him like this, and when he went limp, she held him for longer until she slowly unravelled herself. She crawled away, looking back at Loki who was glaring, but was otherwise resting on his side. He was breathing heavily as if he was having a difficult time getting enough air. She got on her knees and pulled Erik to the ground before knocking him in the head with her elbow rendering him unconscious. She didn’t have anything to try and knock the blue cube down, surrounded by a glowing blue light, with anything but the knife her in her mouth, so she attempted to use that. 

It cut through the barrier, but as soon as her hand made contact it started to burn. She saw her skin slowly being burned as if she was holding her hand in acid. She struggled until she pushed the cube down, and when it hit the base of the contraption, she grabbed it and cradled both the cube and her burned arm against her chest, the knife safely in her other hand. She watched as the sky seemed to close back up, but not before a man flying, covered in red armor, guided something through the portal. He fell down, but he never hit the ground. 

“You’ve done well,” Anthony whispered behind her. He had her shoulders and pulled her onto her back before taking her arm and healing it with whatever sorcery he used, and then he took the tesseract and crushed the box in his hand before extracting the small blue gem and put it into a hidden space in the sky. She could see red metal fading back into the skin on his arms. “Rest now, I’ll see to your safety.” 

“Don’t trust you.” 

“Smart girl, but you’ve proven to be more useful alive to me than dead. You’ll come by no harm by my hand in the near future. So please, rest.” He ran a hand through her hair, relieving the pain at her scalp from her fight with Loki, and soon her ankle felt better and entirely functional. Why would he waste time and energy unless he was truly going to keep her safe. She decided that she prefered to stay unconscious now than the alternative and growing weary in a time where she was in undeniable danger. Her eyes fell closed, and then she slept. 


	2. The Loki-est God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asgard: there and back again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've rewritten the beginning of Phase Two at least four times now, and while my outline in generic and not very detailed, it does have some things that will be happening, so it's just a matter of writing them at this point. My ideas keep conflicting so I'm going back and changing things to prepare for future events so this may be shifted around, but since I rewrote the entirety of chapters Four and Five over the past two days, I think that it should be good, mostly. 
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading and hopefully you enjoy this chapter too. C:

Natasha’s POV

When she woke up, she was in a white and chrome room -- the infirmary aboard the helicarrier. She breathed a sigh of relief and sat up. She looked at her hand. Completely healed, as if she hadn’t suffered horrendous pain and burned the outermost layer of skin off. She rotated her sliced ankle, and it worked fine, as if she had never been injured at all. She took a deep breath and forced herself into a sitting position. She was the only one in the infirmary, but she knew that there was someone watching her. Not being able to pinpoint the source of her discomfort left her twitchy. But then, out from the shadows, Anthony walked towards her. He ran his fingers through her hair and she remembered just how sharp and strong his nails were, yet he didn’t even scratch her, his nails sliding against her scalp but without drawing any blood. In fact, it almost felt nice. She turned to glare at him. He smiled at her. 

“My home, hidden from humanity with a glamour of my design, is open to the Avengers, but I wished to personally offer sanctuary within the confines of my home.” 

“Is there some sort of weird, god-ritual or something to accept living with you?” 

“None that your people have documented.” 

“Your ability to evade my questions is irritating,” she said, comfortable with admitting to that. He didn’t shrug his shoulders, at least not as carelessly or brutish as she had seen other men do, but he did shrug them essentially. “I’ll live with you if the others are. You really want to be on our team?” 

“Heavens no. I want to be on  _ your _ team, so a bit of tolerance can be offered to the others, for now.” 

She wondered just what Director Fury thought about that, but she didn’t say anything about that. No, Anthony didn’t seem to like anyone other than her, and that was an odd thought considering he had once slept with Loki, or that’s how it sounded. Then again, sex hardly meant emotions in her line of work, and it seemed that she and Anthony shared a great trait of lacking sympathy for the majority. Even those slight few that she thought she could one day meet and possibly connect with, were people that she was definitely not going to get close to within at least three years of being with them. She didn’t trust, because trust was based on words, and those who lacked the incentive to act on those promises and words rarely found themselves remaining loyal in the face of an easier way out. She had seen it plenty of time in a variety of people. 

“You think I want to be on a team with them? That I feel a bond with any of them, trust them, or think I could safely rely on them without hesitation? Hawkeye’s been my partner for the past nine years, and I still don’t truly rely on his capabilities to save myself. I don’t need a team.” 

“Yet you have one nonetheless.” 

“What about you? Are you an Avenger as long as you provide them with a cushy home?” 

“Consider me an independent contractor working to ensure the safety of the rest of the world. I am, after all, the mind behind Stark Industries. So do you accept my offer?” As soon as she saw his smile widen, she knew she had given herself away. Yes, she did accept his offer, if for nothing more than to try and learn what he was and how to combat it. He reached out to hold her hand. She took it without external hesitancy and then she felt her body move despite having not moved it herself. 

Anthony held her fingers in his hand now that they stood in front of an enormous manor. Rather, a group of buildings that clumped together. It was a Compound complex of sorts, but she didn’t understand why he lived here or what each of those buildings were meant for. She saw that there were other people here, all of them were Avengers except Director Fury who wasn’t really included under the banner. Steve was looking around at everything like he’d seen something amazing, and perhaps to him this was absolutely amazing, and then Thor, pulling a scruffy, frumpled, bound and gagged Loki behind him by the chains around his wrists. 

“I humbly request the tesseract be returned to Asgard, Sir Anthony, when we return for the day,” Thor said. Natasha looked over at Anthony. He was going to be going to Asgard with him? She doubted that was a good idea based on the disagreement between Thor and Anthony, but Anthony didn’t say anything. He nodded towards Thor and then towards a den-like formation made of rock, covered in vines and flowers which draped over the opening. How cliche. 

“FRIDAY is the AI here, she will assist you with anything you need while I’m away and keep you from the restricted areas,  _ by force _ if necessary. I will return soon enough to introduce you properly to your new residence.” Anthony didn’t drop her hand, he lowered it to her side and then let go before walking towards the cave, taking Thor and Loki with him. 

They all stared into the opening for minutes, until she decided that he was gone for now. She walked past Steve and Dr. Banner and towards the building Clint was already trying to find a grip on. She stood behind him, arms crossed over her chest and her legs widened in a rather aggressive stance. 

“Have you already found your new perch?” she asked. He startled and turned to look at her. 

“As a matter of fact, I have. Look up there--” He pointed to the top of the building he was leaning against. There was what seemed to be a little nook between the oddly shaped rooftops. “That’s my new ‘nest.’ So allow me to nest, Tash.” 

She backed away, watching as a skilled assassin and agent struggled to scale the building so he could hunker down in a cramped corner and watch everything. There was also the fact he wiggled his butt every time he tried to get to the next foothold before sliding back to the ground and restarting that made it all the less believable. She shook her head, not sure what to make of that. She decided to wander around like Anthony offered while Dr. Banner looked frightfully out of place, but also curious, and Steve whispered with Director Fury. 

When she opened the door, she didn’t expect the human voice to greet her. 

“Hello, Miss Widow. I’ve been asked to guide you wherever you would like. Is there anything you would like to see in particular?” 

“Is there any chance you’ll show me the doors to the forbidden sectors?” 

There was a chance to find out more at a later date, because FRIDAY was taking her to the locations she was ‘forbidden from entering.’ FRIDAY said that it was only logical that she knew the boundaries so she could know how to avoid them. Her human tone conveyed nothing like a human despite her magnificent impression. She had no idea how to read her inflection. Was she being sarcastic or was she genuinely this naive? It was difficult to think that anything of Anthony’s wasn’t extremely insightful about just about everything. She was led to four different doors, and then an elevator missing two floor tiles. She wasn’t to enter any of those places. 

So, as she did best, she followed the twinkling lights to the room she was given, a huge room full of everything she could ever need or want and then some, and started to plan on how she could get into said restricted areas. Nothing was forbidden if you were smart enough to get around the security. Anthony could smite her, or whatever, but he’d had to know she’d find a way to break into his ‘restricted’ areas at some point. 

It was stupid to potentially piss off a power house like him, but it was also stupid to leave those places that could be brimming with otherworldly knowledge alone just because it was  _ possible _ he would know she had broken in. She was going to take the chance, especially since he seemed to have something akin to a ‘soft spot’ for her. 

Frigga’s POV

For the past months she had been in mourning of her youngest child -- her darling son, her precious little mage. She was then informed of his survival and she was seconds from thanking the universe for answering her prayers, but then she learned under what conditions they had learned of his survival. He had attacked Midgard and wished to wage war against the realm. She had gone to Odin to speak in private. There were so many smaller details that needed to be taken into consideration that she doubted Odin would do himself. She found her husband in his war room, already speaking with her eldest child. She caught their attention by clearing her throat. They turned to her and wished to inquire as to why she interrupted such an important development. 

“Summon your friends. I cannot lose you to his madness, either, Thor,” she said. She hadn’t wanted her other child to be murdered by her youngest. She loved both and wished that none of the past had happened, but Loki made everything so difficult for everyone, herself included. Unlike her, though, the Asgardians were entirely rude to him, sparing him no care due to his princedom since he wasn’t Thor. She could hold her tongue and nurture him, but despite her never-ending work, the Asgardians destroyed him far beyond what she could repair. 

Thor ran off to join the Warriors Three and Lady Sif for the fight against Loki, and was to bring them to the throne room, where Frigga would use her limited magical talents to send them safely through the branches of Yggdrasil, maintaining enough energy to bring them back once they’d found her second son. But Thor arrived without the Warriors Three, or even Lady Sif. She looked to her husband, who seemed just as confused as she was. Where had his shield brothers and Lady Sif gone? 

“Fandral has spoken to me, he speaks of a being who will transport me to Midgard for a small fee. His strength is that of a thousand Jotun, or that is what Fandral likened him to. He convinced me to call upon this man, but I wished to confer with you before I made such a decision.” 

“Who is this being young Fandral speaks of?” 

“His name is Sir Anth--” 

“Don’t say the rest of his title, boy!” Frigga shouted. She quickly covered her mouth, not realizing how loud she had gotten. She hadn’t only heard horrible tales of the deity known simply as ‘Anthony,’ but she had found a book in the palace library, hidden and forgotten under a crooked desk, held together by dragon burned gold from the old days. It described someone who had the power of the universe at his fingertips, and would willingly offer his services,  _ for a price _ . And typically steep prices if the books were forsooth. As a practitioner of magic, she knew that magic often came with a price, but the price described by that being was too much, yet people swore that their steep debt was worth what they received from him. 

The main issue wasn’t entirely his price, but it was because he was an interdimensional being. He had visited a foreign universe, apparently, and it detailed a few of his experiences and how they were different in those universes then their own. How he had taken the Loki of that time and harmed him beyond repair, leaving him for death at the hands of the Asgardians after draining him dry, or in a different universe, he had seduced the two regents of the Dark Dimension and destroyed all the mages in the universe that opposed him until he had the siblings fight each other to the death. 

This  _ being _ was nothing more than a monster. A soulless, heartless brute hiding behind a pretty face. 

“You know of him, mother?” 

“I’ve read of him in the forgotten books in the archive. I greatly suggest you make no deals with him lest you be willing to pay horrific prices.” 

“Dearest wife, it’s no problem to us. Surely this mage can’t be all that powerful.  _ I’ve _ never heard of him, and neither has Heimdall. Let’s call upon him and see what his price is, then we may decide.” 

So, Thor had called upon the being, who appeared in a flash of blue light. The man was beautiful, handsome in some ways too, but she knew what lurked behind that smile, and she knew what was hiding behind the magical barrier he had cast around himself. He looked around, and seemed to know where he was at before turning to Odin and neglecting to show any respect for the King. Freya wouldn’t have been so offended had she realized that this being was purposely being disrespectful. There was no ignorance, that  _ thing _ knew how to walk between worlds, a feat even the greatest Karnilla or the Vishanti couldn’t accomplish, he knew the proper way to greet the Allfather. 

Instead of speaking, she held her tongue, if for nothing more than hope that her son would be brought back to her, even if that meant Loki would have to suffer in Asgard once again. That monster was a threat to her people in Vanaheim, her people in Asgard, and more so to Loki than anyone else she knew. She also guessed that he wouldn’t likely decline such an offer seeing as the Allfather or Thor would owe him. 

“I haven’t seen Asgard looking so  _ alive _ for some time. I can’t say the gold hides enough of your history, and the plaster runs far more shallow than the pool of blood that runs between her toes. Or rather the blood that runs beneath your feet as she worked on your behalf, as I recall.” Instead of explaining himself, and she knew that Odin was extremely tense now due to the mention of Hela, he turned to Thor. “And who might you be? Big and blonde. Holding Mjolnir this time round? You must be Thor Odinson. Excuse me,  _ Prince _ Thor Odinson. I could have sworn you were far less  _ sighted _ the last time we met, but perhaps that was of a different time or place. Have we met yet? Time moves so quickly when you’re having fun.” 

“I request your help gathering my brother, Prince Loki, from his destructive tendencies in Midgard and securing him so we may come back to Asgard so he may face proper justice. I also hear you are a sky walker, and that is a skill we will need considering our Bifrost was broken months ago.” 

“Mmmhmm. But what about me?” 

“What about you?” Thor asked. She wanted to slap herself in the face for raising someone so ineloquent. It was clear what Anthony wanted, and she was either a failure as a mother to raise him or he was so blinded by his own royal status that he just expected everyone to do as he ‘requested.’ 

“I don’t help anyone unless I’ve been assured of payment. Surely you don’t think your golden halls and polite title are enough to convince me to do anything for you without giving me something I want in return.” 

She made eye contact with Odin, and then her husband nodded. She was glad she managed to convince him, albeit silently, to do the right thing. Or that’s what she had thought, until Odin spoke. 

“What is it you want, Anthony?” Odin asked this, and Frigga couldn’t take it, and turned on her heel, quickly walking away, but before she could reach the doors, they were pulled shut by glistening gold magic. It felt corrupted and evil despite it’s innocent colour. She turned to face Anthony who had a hand outreached. He motioned and in a flare of magic, all the doors and windows sealed. 

“I need immunity in Asgard’s court, protection from the valkyries.” 

“Absolutely not,” Odin said. Anthony nodded and then he was gone, the doors unlocked and swung open, the windows were forced open with enough force to shatter the reinforced glass inside of them. The  _ thing _ was gone, the ‘man’ was nowhere to be seen. “Heimdall said Loki is… Wife, what say you?” 

“Surely you cannot truly be desperate enough to consider hiring him.” 

“How much damage could he cause?” 

“Enough,” she said. Her head bowed because she knew her husband was sometimes too comfortable in his position, no longer a warring King but a docile ‘peaceful’ man with a gentle disposition. That wasn’t the truth, he was a warrior and a brute to the core, no matter his Odinforce, he was nothing to that being. 

“We accept your price, Sir Anthony,” Thor said. She sighed, only to be startled when hands touched her shoulders. Anthony patted her shoulders, smirking at her as he walked around her and back towards Thor and Odin. 

“I expect confirmation in a formal agreement upon bringing your wayward  _ adopted _ son here.” He smirked at her in particular. “Oh, I’m aware of his heritage. It’s clear. No wonder he tried to escape this place. Surely his treatment was torturous since being brought here. You can’t have one of  _ those _ on the throne, could you? Needed to crush him down before you could play the benevolent caregiver.” 

“You dare speak ill of the royal family?” Thor asked, as if it was unbelievable. She wanted to push him into his room and lock him inside, but he had gotten far too big for her to baby him a few centuries ago. 

“I dare. In fact, I  _ do _ and will do again. But for now, I’ll fulfill my purpose as your transport to Midgard and to your blue brother, if you’d like to go to him now before he irrevocably harms more mortals than  _ your _ conscience can handle.” 

Frigga wanted to pull him back, but Thor nodded dutifully towards Odin and then her before walking towards Anthony as if he wasn’t a monster in human skin. Anthony hooked his arm with Thor’s and then they were gone in a flash of blue. She wanted to throw her hair clip and tell Odin exactly what she thought of his inability to read his wife after so many years of living and ruling beside her. She left the throne room without another word. At first she expected that her husband would usher her to his court and demand her opinion, but he let her be. 

She waited, a nervous wreck, for hours. The time dragged on for what felt like days, but then there was a flash of blue out of the corner of her eye and Anthony was in her personal quarters, away from the bed she shared with the Allfather. Her rooms were heavily warded by her and the former witches who practiced their craft there, queens of the past. Only the Odinforce, since it controlled everything on Asgard, could break through the wards, but not today. Anthony had managed to get past them with ease, and that was even more disturbing than the grip he had on Loki, who was bound and muzzled like an animal. She fell before Loki, running her hands up through the long, greasy ends of his hair, and wondered how long he had drifted in the abyss. Surely time worked differently there, just as time worked differently almost everywhere. A magic innate to the living forces around the earth, unknowingly powering the universe and all of its inhabitants. All but one it seemed. 

She turned to look at Anthony, who had a hand gripped in the back of Loki’s hair. She rose to her feet, dusting her dress off, her shoulders tight, her neck tense, and her teeth grinding. She observed him, but he didn’t seem to mind her display, in fact, his smirk was too close to Loki’s own to be anything good. 

“I want my payment,” he said. His fist gripped Loki’s hair and he pulled his head back. This shocked all of them, even Loki who’s eyes widened and staggered, clearly not suspecting that action. “Or I’ll take him instead.” 

“Thor, gather the Allfather for his ruling.” 

“Of course,” Thor said. Ever the obedient child, he left immediately to find his father and hopefully gather what they had of Anthony’s payment. She didn’t move much, entirely aware that Anthony was taking in her every action just as she was gathering her own information by his actions. The only problem was the way he held himself was  _ wrong _ . Parts were tense that other parts would typically be rendered tense as well weren’t. His body and his expressions seemed oddly matched, uneven. Unstable. Crooked. 

“How fares Vanaheim? It’s been… at least three centuries since I last visited.” 

“Did you visit or rob them?” Frigga asked, testing the water despite knowing she shouldn’t. By all means, this man could destroy her and all of Asgard, but something gave her the feeling that he wouldn’t despite everything pointing the other way. Just an innate instinct that let her know he wasn’t going to destroy Asgard without a great reason, almost like he needed Asgard stable in order to remain here. 

“Why can’t I have both?” 

“I suppose you can, but the Vanir are a strong willed people with magic unlike the Aesir. Surely they must have recognized you and your monstrous tendencies.” Her words didn’t seem to phase him in the slightest. 

“It wouldn’t be unreasonable for a few to have recognized me with nothing more than their instinct to pick up on those lurking in the abyss, but have you seen me? My skin is normal, my eyes shine and my smiles are always bright. There is nothing threatening about me to the majority. If a single man goes against the crowd, do you know what happens to him?” She shook her head, although she had an idea of what would happen. “I think you’re perfectly capable of coming to the conclusion yourself, but since you haven’t said anything I will take your silence as stupidity and explain myself in layman’s terms. The man who goes against the majority becomes an outcast, or he’s forced to assimilate by force, and it’s not always physical coercion either.” 

“If only a few picked up on your  _ inhumanity _ , then they wouldn’t be believed by those who think they know better, those who are still in power who reign with arrogance and ignorance to the world outside of their own,” she said. He nodded, his cheek brushing against Loki’s ear. Her son was tipped back on his heels in what had to be an uncomfortable position, but he hadn’t said anything yet. His silence was almost entirely because of the gag in his mouth, but Loki seemed afraid of Anthony, so either he knew what he was or who he was, neither were something she wanted to think much about. 

As if her presence meant nothing, Anthony whispered into Loki’s ear in a language ever her Allspeak couldn’t translate, yet Loki seemed to know what he was saying, and soon enough, the tears he had been blinking back dripped down his cheeks and caught on the harsh metal of his muzzle. She reached up to touch the muzzle, to take it off her son. How humiliating this entire affair was. Her Loki didn’t deserve such mistreatment, not after the life he had suffered before due to her inaction. 

When her fingers touched the muzzle, she was shocked by golden magic that struck out at her. She pulled a burnt hand away. Anthony stopped his whispering a moment later to look at her from over Loki’s shoulder. 

“You want to take him away. Keep him safe?” he asked. 

“Yes.” 

“You would leave your husband, your wealthy life, and your other child behind for this one?” 

“ _ Yes _ ,” she said. She wasn’t lying, she just wanted Loki to be away from this torment, and she wanted to be free of Anthony’s presence. She had a feeling that Anthony was asking her these questions for something she may find unpleasant, but he nodded, and the muzzle slid off Loki’s face like it had never been there. He gasped in air, his crying having hindered his ability to breathe. 

“You don’t need to do this, mother, I can handle myself--” 

“Hush now, Loki. You may just be able to live the rest of your days out in a place that will truly accept the both of you. Wouldn’t you like that?” 

“You wouldn’t help me unless you wanted something in return… I’ve given you everything of any worth.” 

“I highly recommend taking my offer, and accepting that one day, at any time, I will come to the two of you, and I will request something from you. You will have no option but to give me whatever it is I want, or I’ll escort you to the abyssal plains to live out your eternal life suffering under the foulest creations of mine.” 

“And what are those creations?” she asked. “Just to humor me.” 

“Do you know what Neutron Slaves are? Or perhaps you might recognize the term Mindless Ones?” 

“You tell lies. Plokta created those beasts and Dormammu--” 

“Yes, I’m aware of what they did. Mine have their own will in a way, but even the dumbest creatures know not to bite the hand that feeds. Why would they ever leave me when I can offer them everything they desire and then some? You should know what giving the idiots what they want keeps them loyal, you have a son and a husband, don’t you? Ones that aren’t as precious as this one?” Anthony dragged a sharp nail down Loki’s cheek causing a tear of blood to slide down his pale cheek. “Keep the biggest dogs in line and the puppies will follow. It’s in their nature. It’s not in ours.” 

“Fine, I… I accept your deal. Keep him safe.” 

“And you as well, of course, as per the deal.” 

“And where will we be kept?” 

“Out of the way,” Anthony said. She could feel her nostrils flare but then she nodded. She’d do it, she’d keep Loki, and she’d take all the blame for leaving, as to keep whatever kindness, if he even knew what that was, he offered them coming. One misstep and she may slip on her uneven land and fall into something far deeper and darker than what she could understand. “Excellent. Take him.” 

She caught Loki as he was shoved forward, the chains tangling around his ankles. She held him up and wiped the blood from where it gathered in a slowly coagulating pool on his chin. She had lived and raised Loki for so long, and yet she had never seen him this shaken, this upset. Rage, yes, her child was rightfully full of anger and hate, but this was also fear and sadness. Hopelessness. She couldn’t tolerate such a look, and so she pulled him to her chest and held him like he was a godling again. 

He was not of her blood, but he was still her child. They would fight, yes, but in the end, Loki was the one that needed her more. She loved Thor, she loved both of her children, but Thor had protection under Odin. Without her, who did Loki have? No one. Neglecting him had only ended up harming them all more. She shouldn’t have let Odin offer parenting advice centuries ago. She had been wrong, and Odin had never been right. 

“Thank you.” 

“You won’t thank me when I ask for payment, I assure you. Nobody does. Run now before your vikings return. Go, quickly, through here--” He opened a portal with the flick of his hand and a tossed ball of blue energy. A portal opened within the air, in a veil of shimmering blue and gold. 

She had no reason to trust him, in fact she had all the reason to do the very opposite, but she owed him, they both did, and it would be easier if she at least got along with him enough to not direct his ire at her should she overstep. She pulled Loki through the portal with her, and they were deposited in a lavish kingdom made of beautiful black marble-like material. 

Immediately, they were surrounded by hulking beasts with the bodies of starving men and the heads and shoulders of emaciated, demonic wolves. Their arms were too long, and their wrists hung to their horse-like legs while their fingers dragged mid-calf. They were hellish things, and there were too many of them around them, huge weapons made of metal blacker than the abyss beneath the Bifrost were pointed at them. Then, there was a loud step, each movement shook the floor as it grew closer. She held Loki to her chest, her own dagger pulled as if she would somehow manage to save them with that alone. 

“Idiots! Move!” a raspy voice called out. The beasts scattered like whimpering pups, leaving them in the presence of a monstrous human. The being had a flat face, long, thick fangs dropped from its upper lip while larger fangs rose a centimeter from its nose. The torso was a human, but the legs were replaced by a sleek, rotting body of some sort of black-furred creature. It’s paws were enormous while the rest of it was relatively normal in size and shape. “You must be guests of our great Lord. Follow me this way. He has told us to be expecting a Loki for quite some time.” 

“A Loki? As in, one of many?” Loki asked, struggling to tear the chains from his hands. Frigga unlatched them and Loki dropped to pull the shackles from his ankles before standing up, moving side to side as if he was dizzy. 

“Yes. We’ve hosted many Lokis from an assortment of Universes. Please, follow me to your chambers.” 

Frigga followed the strange creature, holding Loki’s hand as tightly as possible. She had no idea what she was expecting, but nothing was pleasant. Loki seemed to be as uncomfortable as herself although he hid it better. They were shown to a door and the being pushed the door open to reveal a huge room spanning and splitting into many other rooms. A large home of sorts. She looked around. She hadn’t expected such nice accomodations. 

“What are you called, if I may ask?” Loki asked. She looked up from the hand embroidered pillows on the couch, which startled her because Anthony didn’t seem like the type to carry around pillows embroidered with black and white flowers so artfully. In fact, she had expected something more akin to a cell than a home. 

“I am Three. The last remaining being of the third kind of our Lord’s creations. You may call upon Two or One, but I suggest you call upon One only if you are truly desperate for services. She is the most aggressive one of the remaining seven.” 

“Thank you, then, Three. Are we allowed to roam?” 

“Yes, yes, of course. Lokis are to be treated very well, and the Lokis’ guests as well. We haven’t had a Loki in so long. Our Lord loves Lokis, he’s kept many in the past, and we are all excited to have another one gracing our Lord’s palace.” 

“How many, uh, Lokis have your lord had in the past, approximately?” 

“Eighteen, including you.” 

Frigga suddenly regretted her decision, but Loki’s laughter was so nice. It wasn’t a happy sound but it had been so long since she had heard anything but venom or cries that it was refreshing even though it was bittersweet. 

“What does he do with his Lokis?” 

“Ever since the first Loki left, our Lord keeps the others like pets of sorts. He is called Lokis ‘puppies.’ I’ve been informed that puppies are companion animals. Little living treasures.” 

“And the first Loki, if I may, what happened to him?” Loki seemed like he needed to hear these things when Frigga just wanted to ignore the fact that Anthony had collected different Lokis from different universes and kept them hidden away at his palace in wherever this place was. She hadn’t seen a single window, although she had felt a breeze. What was she missing? 

“Our Lord liked the first Loki very much, but the first Loki left our Lord to rule Asgard. Our Lord has never had a Loki like that one since. The first Loki witnessed him create One. He takes over worlds, yes our Lord does, and he fed the first Loki to One after his betrayal.” The being tilted its head. “Not to worry, young Loki, our Lord hasn’t fed a Loki to anything since then. His Lokis are treasures, and when they die, he holds them in jars.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Yes, he holds the ashes of Lokis in pots that he creates with the abyss. It’s all around you, after all. Look, the palace is made with the abyss!” 

“Thank you, Three. May we have some time to settle in?” Loki asked. Three nodded its head before leaving the room. Loki turned to her and she knew that he was just as terrified as she was. Whatever Anthony was, he didn’t value life at all, it seemed, and she knew that her Loki did not want to end up as ashes stuffed in a vase like a trophy. 

The bookshelf was huge, though, and took up the entire side walls, built in and around the doors, and filled with books of all sorts. Frigga knew she could learn much from those texts, and thought that maybe she and Loki could deal with whatever in Valhalla was happening around this place, they could use it to their advantage by learning information likely gone or hidden to the majority. She sat down, and told Loki about what she had read only to find out that he already knew and had made a deal with him before, in his past. He had already paid that debt, but he wouldn’t give her more details. 

It was impossible, but Anthony didn’t seem to be limited by possibility, and it was almost as if all of this was orchestrated just to get Loki here, to get things where he wanted them to be. No, it was impossible, even for someone like Anthony, right? He couldn’t see the future, he couldn’t change time like that. No, no, of course not. Her thoughts had turned down a silly path. 

But even when she had Loki’s cuts wrapped and sat beside him in front of the fire, the possibility that they were all just pets and objects to the being known as Anthony. 

Steve’s POV

Their new home was wonderful. Cushy, even. His apartment was tight, old, and cramped, but the buildings on the land Anthony had offered them were wonderful. It was like waking up in Oz, seeing a whole new world that he had no idea how to navigate. He sought out those that he knew, that being Natasha. She had sent him away from her room rudely, and he had been left to his own devices since Anthony had left. He was thinking about calling the man Tony, but he was honestly scared of him. 

Anthony was a bully, and he would always do his best to protect the underdog, but he wouldn’t be any use if he was dead. He needed to stay alive to stay useful for when whatever is wrong with Anthony -- Tony -- comes to light. He hadn’t been pleased when Fury all but demanded him to live with the man as a ‘team.’ It had been given to him, his team to run, and yet Fury seemed to call all the shots when it came to everything outside of battle. 

He waited in the common room of the ‘residential’ building that they had been invited into. It was huge, with vaulted ceilings and decor so modern and human in nature that it threw him for a loop. This was a Stark, supposedly, and he wasn’t human, but he did a good job making his home look like he was. 

“Your eyes are far more weary than your body,” Anthony said. He jumped in his seat, startled by the fact he hadn’t heard the man enter the room. He hadn’t even seen him. It was probably more magic. He looked up at him, and glared. Of course he looked tired, he had been dealing with a whole lot of stuff he didn’t understand, but he knew, with every fibre of his being, that he had to stay here to keep an eye on the biggest threat. They always say to keep your enemies closer, and that’s what he was doing. 

“‘M just tired.” 

Instead of responding, Anthony walked around the couch and sat beside him, not too close, but not very far either. He stretched out on the couch, not caring for Steve’s personal space one bit, and looked at him with a smirk. 

“I’ll just let you admire my decor, if that’s what you would like. I could always offer my services to bring back that of which you truly desire. Do you know what you  _ really _ want?” 

That didn’t make any sense, and Steve wanted to let Anthony know just how little that made sense, but he didn’t because he felt oddly invaded. Like someone had looked into his soul and planned on using it against him, but now that the question was asked, he didn’t know what it was that he wanted. What did he want? Peace on Earth? An end to poverty? For all children to have happy families? For the world to be a good place filled with good people? He didn’t speak, but Anthony did -- he seemed to really like talking. That was one trait he had in common with the Stark he had known back in the day. 

“I suppose you wouldn’t wish to know when nothing feels the same. I’ll be in my workshop. Ask FRIDAY to grab my attention if you need me.  _ Do skorogo _ .” 

Anthony stood up and walked away just as silently as he managed to get into the room. He sat back against the couch. What did Anthony mean by what he ‘really’ wanted? How would Anthony know if he didn’t know himself? He hated the fact he didn’t know how Anthony worked. He knew how humans worked, they don’t have magic and they’ll fall down if you punch them hard enough, but this Stark, this inhuman being, was all wrong, wrong, wrong, and Steve’s instincts told him to get away as quick as possible, but his logic told him to use this to study and learn to later use his observations against him when Anthony inevitably turns on them. 

So far, Anthony had allowed Loki to beat the living crap out of Natasha as a ‘test’ or something, and after she was healed, he praises her and gives her everything. What would he do to attempt to endear Steve to him? He didn’t want to get so injured that he could barely survive just to be deemed worthy when Anthony swooped in to save the day and his life. He would owe him then, and he really didn’t want to owe him anything. 

It was a lesson he had to learn, but you never trust a man like Anthony, and you especially don’t trust a  _ demon _ like Anthony. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I could give a bit of a timeline, but I think I might dedicate a chapter to some background. I'll write it in though so I'm not just shoving background in your face and all that. It'll make sense, hopefully.


	3. Standing Somewhere Between Wishes and Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fury knows Tony knows more than he's letting one, but how can he get the information from him?
> 
> Pierce's Soldier isn't functioning like it should. 
> 
> After a history lesson, Natalia is given an option she has no idea how to approach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is another update. I'm on chapter two of Phase Two, but I'm having a really difficult time with it, mostly because continuity and dealing with such a wide range of characters. Not all of them will have Tony or James, of course, but they will typically have one of the main three (Tony, James, and Natasha) to sort of act as the stability. Anyway, did anyone else see that thing about how the X-Men were going to be introduced in Black Panther 2. I felt a little odd because it claimed to be a 'surprise to anyone who doesn't know the comics well' but I think the possibilities of introducing the X-Men and mutantkind into the MCU through Black Panther is going to happen with the marriage of Ororo and T'Challa, like the comics. Is that a spoiler? It technically hasn't happened yet, but it's probably how that'll work, and honestly I don't know much about the comics, not like some of the people I know, but that was a little... easy, so I'm not sure if I'll be right or wrong. 
> 
> Anyway! That being said, the X-Men will be introduced in Phase Two, so that'll be fun, but it's also part of the trouble. Which mutants will I chose? How should I characterize them? Should I go my own route since it's technically an alternate universe where I sort of make the rules and can change the other 'canon' because it's not from the main two universes (616 and 19999/MCU since 1610/the Ultimates was (spoiler?) wrecked!), just sort of based loosely around it. So, yeah, I'm trying to keep it down, but honestly I'm all over the place so planning and scheduling updates won't be done until I have a better grasp on where I want this to go. I know how it starts, I know how it ends, but I'm figuring out how the characters get there only a little bit before my readers do, so yeah.

Fury’s POV

There were aliens, then there were gods, and now there was the unseen Stark genius who was both an alien and a god, or something like that? He honestly wasn’t paid enough for this sort of bullshit. His entire desk was three inches higher because of the multiple stacks of papers awaiting his attention. As a professional, he knew he should fill out the forms, dance like a monkey for the WSC and Pierce, but he just didn’t have that sort of patience. Instead, he went out to ‘check’ on the Avengers. It had been a good two months since they had gone to stay with the elusive Stark, and he had only been called a few times by Hawkeye to report to him what he found out, and the same for Rogers. On the same note, neither of them had anything important to tell him, and the only thing he did understand from their reports was that they lost a very valuable asset, the Black Widow, to the  _ thing _ (because he wasn’t a man far as he considered them). 

The trip there was full of green guts spilling out of bugs that hit his windshield, and a multiple-hour long conference call with Pierce who wanted knowledge on Anthony just as badly as he did. As he approached the gates to the large compound, he ended his call and waited for the gates to open. On cue, the gates parted and let him through. He saw no humans outside, but there were a variety of different animals and plants around. There was a technological masterpiece in the form of his self-sufficient and cloaked Compound planted right in the middle of an evil forest. Those forests where the kids are always eaten by blind witches, nasty places. His car couldn’t wade through the tall,  _ moving _ grass, and so he parked and stepped out. The grass parted for his feet to reveal worm infested soil. He was nearly killed by three snakes, two ravens dive bombed him, and there was a huge panther-like creature on the roof of a smaller building, probably a shed of some sort, that hadn’t stopped staring at him until he reached the door. The land near the Compound buildings grew less dense with wildlife. The grass was clean cut, it didn’t move like a sentient carpet, and the only snakes that were there, were those carved above the door in an etched mural around the tall door into the residential building. 

Fury hated gods, and whatever the hell Anthony was. Mostly the latter. 

“You aren’t aware of the day it is, are you?” Anthony said from behind him. 

Now, Fury was a hardened and trained agent and spy, and nobody had got the better of him for decades, including the Black Widow, but Anthony was fast and silent, and there was no indication of him being near unless he made his presence known, which was irritating as hell. He turned to face the man. Instead of the strange armor and robe he wore when he fought, he was in a pair of oil-stained jeans and an oil-stained tank top that let his arms get covered in grease from the hands all the way to his elbows. There was a streak of grease on his shoulder, but it didn’t seem to bother the man at all. 

“Obviously not. Can you tell me what the day is for you?” 

“So you may cross reference your recorded history to see why it matters to me and attempt to use it as fuel for a war against me?” Anthony said, his tone never wavering from the slightly amused and friendly tone he had when he first spoke. The way he said things made him likeable and annoying at the same time, and Fury didn’t like confusion. He liked when snakes were laid straight, although the snakes seemed to own the land nearer the gates in this zoo. “Today is the day I met with Astrippus of Cyrene and proposed a gift to him. He misunderstood my lesson and took my godly domain and ruined it with the idea of altruism. Some two millenia later, I introduce my concept again, in the hopes that I would be heard, and they ruined it all with their ideas of morality, so you see, it’s very important, because in between all two-thousand one-hundred and eighty-two years, I oversaw one hundred and twenty-eight wars. 

“Oh, how times have changed,” Anthony said. Fury wasn’t sure, but he was pretty sure Anthony was telling the truth, which made things a lot more difficult. Even Loki and Thor weren’t that old, and they were gods.  _ What _ was Anthony? Not knowing was physically making him itch. “Now, my influence has spread to everyone. Not just on Earth, but everywhere. Think about everyone in the entire universe who’s having sex right now? How many wars are taking place? How many people are dying, and how many people are born? All of it is my domain.” 

“That’s incredible,” Fury said, his voice raising a pitch to imply interest. “How is it that you’re stuck here working on Earth when there is a whole universe for you to explore?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean, why stay here?” Fury said, although he was very sure his first question was clear enough. 

“No, I knew what you meant, I’m just unsure of how you came to the conclusion that I’m stuck on Earth. I do visit the other realms. People from all over the universe call for my aid, and I’m nothing if not a benevolent god awaiting to help the weaker beings solve problems much larger than themselves,” Anthony shrugged his shoulders and his lip twitched. “ _ For a price _ .” 

“It’s not kindness if you’re being paid to do it,” Fury said. Then again, Anthony had mentioned whatever it was that he tried to get humanity to pick up on was ruined by altruism, which was benevolence at an extreme, right? Yeah, it was. This is how Anthony got people, he spoke so much, gave away so much pointless information that he completely distracted them and pulled them off track, or he twisted their words into something he wanted to hear and responded to that instead. If he had been human, he would have made an excellent agent, but since he wasn’t human, he was just a threat. 

“You couldn’t afford my talent.” 

“Really? And what would I need your help with?” 

“Your infestation most likely, but if you want to continue running a barely-functioning, practically-blind organization hiding one of the only reasons I don’t leave your stupid universe then feel free to do as you please. I’ll get what I crave, and then you and yours will be dust in the wind.” Anthony was darker now. There was no playfulness, no amusement like before. At first it was, but he seemed to rile himself up, his eyes never making contact with Fury for more than a second as he looked everywhere as if his eyes were being shaken haphazardly through his skull, the brown iris turning golden and bleeding out into the whites. With a strength he suspected Anthony had, the front of his shirt was grabbed and he was pulled forward, and the bared teeth in front of him, ever apparent as he was held off the ground like he weighed nothing, were fanged and far too white to be natural. It looked like they were made of the coldest, cleanest ice, but were sharper than any blade humanity could make. “And don’t you  _ ever _ insinuate yourself as being even marginally as powerful as myself. You are to me as a fly is to you: a nuisance. You serve your purpose, but beyond that you mean  _ nothing _ .” 

Then, just as fast as it happened, he was standing on his feet, his shirt smoothed as if he had never been grabbed, and Anthony stood there, looking as normal as he had before that. His arms were crossed and his smile revealed very human teeth, if not with only slightly sharper canines, while his warm, brown eyes focused on him like he was having a pleasant conversation with him. 

“I just don’t want to deal with your kind, you see. The one I’m here for will wake when he comes closer to my power, he’ll return to my embrace. Then he’ll do all the hard work himself, as my best creation should always prove for himself. You know not of his power, but he is my most personal and perfect creation, even if he hadn’t known it until centuries after the fact.” 

“Who is he?” 

“I don’t know which ‘he’ you’re speaking of, but if you must know the leopard lurking in the undergrowth to your left is Joseph.” 

“Don’t play coy, Stark. The one you made,” Fury said. Was he seriously going to just ignore what he just said? Did he regret mentioning it? Or did he want to hook him deeper and wait until he decided he’d do anything for more information? He doubted that anything Anthony did was done as an accident. He seemed like a planner, yet he was so chaotic. He was so confusing, and that made him even more frustrating. 

“Which one?” 

“Your ‘personal and perfect’ one.” 

“He’s nobody right now.” 

“But who was he?” 

“He’s the best soldier you’ve  _ ever _ seen and he’ll be the best you’ll ever see,” Anthony said. The idea that Anthony had created a ‘perfect’ soldier, and considering the fact that Anthony could do many things that proved he was a threat to humanity alone made his creation sound like too much danger under the same control. He needed to find the soldier before Anthony could, and hide him, or do something with him. He couldn’t let Anthony have him, and if that meant SHIELD would need to take him in as a hostage or test subject, then they would. SHIELD helped people, but they were never a transparent and ethical organization -- just like any other intelligence agency. 

“On another note, not that I’m not interested in your boy toy because I am, I actually came to talk to you about some SHIELD related manners. Is there somewhere we can speak in a more secure place? Preferably with a table.” 

“Follow me. This’ll need to be a little quicker than I prefer business just because I have other, more pressing matters, awaiting my attention.” 

***

On his way back to SHIELD Headquarters he let out a long string of expletives with a packet of papers sealed in a folder he couldn’t open lest Anthony’s creepy magic attacks him, or something like that. He could always reseal it, but he doubted Anthony would be stupid enough to-- but he would definitely assume what he’d think and didn’t even proof it. He could be lying. He went straight to his office, envelope hidden under his arm under his trenchcoat. He threw the envelope on the table and then locked his office door and sat down to open it. He had a whole method, as every good (if not rudimentary) spy, had in his arsenal of information gathering abilities. 

Once he got the envelope open, he pulled out the papers with a gentle touch, but when he went to read them, they were all just blank. As he tried to find the hidden meaning, there was a knock on his door. He didn’t answer it. Maria could handle it. Everyone knew she was Deputy Director and he was often busy. Then the security to his office was overridden with a specific passcode and Alexander Pierce walked into the room. He didn’t scramble to hide the documents, but since they were blank, he let them rest on his desk, face up and hid the envelope addressed to Pierce of all people. If anyone knew, he had simply checked it because he wanted to help his friend out -- nobody would believe it but they didn’t need to believe it to write it down as what happened. He looked up at Pierce with a frown, as he usually did, no need to act overly familiar since there was nothing different right now, or at least nobody needed to know any differently. 

“I know you’re probably busy, I remember the good ol days of paper mountains, but--” Pierce looked at the stack of papers on his desk, and suddenly, there were words on them. Pierce’s name on the very top of the papers was incriminating enough. “Do you often make it a habit to read things addressed to me?” Pierce had every right to get furious with him, yell at him and whatnot, but he snatched the pack of papers and envelope off his desk and held the words to his chest, hiding anything and everything from his eye. 

“I want to make sure it wasn’t--” 

“Save it for someone gullible enough to believe it,” Pierce said, holding a hand up to stop him. “I came to ask you if you were available to assist in the oversight of the zeppelin construction. I don’t trust some of the new agents on their own, especially not with something that important.” 

Fury almost did a double take, but he didn’t because he was trained better than that. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. This was the first time he heard about any projects about anything, but to watch people build zeppelins? What was going on, and what was the plan? 

“Of course I can oversee their construction. I didn’t know we were in the business of using war instruments for gathering intelligence.” 

“Not war instruments, as you call them, they’re information gatherers just like the rest of our projects. But since I’m not sure if I can trust you not to try and pry into my life, I’m locking the files for now. You’ll get them back when I feel comfortable with you having access. Until then, I’m displeased with you opening my mail, and make sure you sign in before you oversee the workers, there’s a very important log set up to account for who is there when for what. Now, you have things to do, and I have things to do, so I’m not going to bother to chit-chat any more.” 

Fury followed Pierce out the door, and then split off to head down to the basement levels and see zeppelins being made. Honest-to-god zeppelins, which he hadn’t thought were used since World War Two, and wondered why exactly there were  _ three _ being built when they only really needed one. He didn’t question people directly, though, he was smarter than that. As he ‘oversaw’ the workers, he worked on his smartphone, accessing the few documents that hadn’t been encrypted by Pierce probably only moments later, and the lack of Pierce’s involvement in things despite him being the true overlord of the company, made him suspicious, but he didn’t know how to find more information without tipping someone off. 

He didn’t like waiting, but for once, that seemed like it was the best option for the time being despite hating it. 

Pierce’s POV

The document Fury had opened for him was extremely incriminating, but he couldn’t find any signs of who wrote it beside the name Anthony. That was a name he had heard a few times, but only from Fury, and never had he connected it to anyone powerful enough to do what the letter said he could. He knew all the big players in the political and underground worlds, and there were no Anthony’s hidden among them. 

He locked the photographs and information on the Winter Soldier and the Winter Soldier Project away where he kept his most dangerous evidence against him, a safe in his home that was specifically contracted to have been made by Stark Industries. It was the highest quality and the safest safe in the world. Stark Industries wasn’t interested in producing sloppy goods. 

So, he went to check on the oversight of the Winter Soldier, currently held in the HYDRA base hidden under the cafe. A cafe in the habit of playing poorly written poetry over the speakers for the ‘hip’ patrons that fancied bitter coffee because it was ‘imported’ and ‘exotic’ despite it just being cheap coffee grounds hidden in fancy bags. 

As usual, he had the main handler for the Soldier with him, at least the handler when he wasn’t available or when the Soldier was sent on a mission. He found the Winter Soldier in his cell, sitting on the cot, he was staring at the wall with a perfectly blank expression. Nothing about him seemed off, despite the photographs having been recent and from the very cell and rooms around the base. He had Rumlow pull the Soldier out for some questions, and once they locked the Soldier down to a metal table bolted to the floor, Pierce sat in front of him. He had a cup of poor coffee, and eventually sighed, after minutes upon minutes of silent staring, and slid the paper cup to the Soldier. 

“C’mon, take it. It’s yours,” he said. But the Soldier didn’t move an inch. “Did you fry him recently?” 

“No, sir,” Rumlow said. He trusted Rumlow as much as he could trust someone, but this behaviour was odd even for the Soldier. He pushed the cup closer to the Soldier who then looked down at it and then back at him. There was something wrong with him, he knew it, he could see the darkness in his eyes, the veins under his pale flesh were growing darker by the second, and his wrists were blue beneath his handcuffs. He was near the door in an instant and demanding to know what was happening, but nobody knew. The doctors came in and threw water on the Soldier, which seemed to freeze upon contact. This odd behaviour suddenly halted a moment before the Soldier slumped over and stopped moving entirely. 

He stood, back pressed against a chilly metal door, as he watched a gaggle of doctors looming around the Soldier, each talking to each other in technical terms that he didn’t understand or care to understand. He just wanted to know if the Asset was going to function properly. Then the doctors’ whispering and talking grew quiet. 

“He’s dead--” 

The Asset grabbed one of the doctors and snapped his neck before kicking another away. Rumlow pulled him out of the room and bolted the door shut. He pulled the blinds up and turned on the volume to the room. Through the two-way mirror he watched as the Asset was viciously  _ tearing _ the doctors apart. There were no quick murders after the first, he was violently and cruelly abusing them and harming them before he killed them. There was something extremely wrong with the Asset, and when he got to the door, where the remaining two doctors pounded their fists in an attempt to be let out, the Asset ripped them apart like the others. 

Drenched in the blood of decent HYDRA medical doctors, the Asset paced in front of the mirror, staring at it and directly into his eyes as if it didn’t bother him. 

“What caused this?” Pierce asked, upset that the Asset’s behaviour was so brutal and disobedient. Rumlow shook his head, and looked at the floor of the room, littered with viscera and limbs, bone fragments and other such body parts that should remain in the body and not on the floor. There was something wrong, but nothing had been different, so why the sudden change? He thought back to the files he had taken from Fury. There was something in the notes that was written in red with gold, glittering ink (how dramatic and flashy) in the margins on some of the medical reports. They hadn’t seemed important then, but now he felt like maybe they were. 

“The room should hold him. Keep him locked in there until I return, I think I might know something,” he said, walking away from the room and down the dimly lit corridor before heading upstairs and into the back of the cafe. 

When he unlocked the safe, he found a new note resting on top of the files he had taken from Fury’s greedy, spying hands. It, too, was written in sparkly red ink with a golden sheen to it. He reached out, unable to keep his hand from shaking as terribly as it was then, and picked the file up. He looked at the new note that should by all means be impossible to have been freshly placed without his knowledge. 

_ And the great dragon was cast out, the old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. _

He knew that line. It was from the bible, but he didn’t know the relevance, or who it was meant to describe. He could assume it was speaking of the Soldier, since it was on the information provided to him, but then again, had he also not been deceiving the whole world himself? Or was the great devil the Anthony character that had given him the papers? 

Deciding that none of his conclusions had any way to be proven, he would think about it later, after they managed to contain the Asset. He flipped through the pages and found the writing on the medical files. There was odd information such as:  _ inject him not with your mortal drugs, but offer him fresh blood and he shall wait obediently _ and  _ speak of the one who gave you this file, the name on the papers, and the soldier shall understand, he will know who I am and who you are. Say my name thrice and he shall remain in the speaker’s control until he breaks your hold _ . 

He didn’t know who the hell this Anthony person was, but he hated it. He also found something like disgust in the explicit notes written on the more physical exam notes of the Soldier spanning the man years. Notes like  _ let his sweet face deceive you not, there are fangs beneath those lush lips and they will rip you apart _ and  _ his skin is so soft, and his muscle so hard. Ruin his flesh and you will feel your own stripped away by unguis with sharpness that is unparalleled by any monster of the universe _ , and the most sexual and uncomfortable was the  _ I yearn to be trapped between his thighs once again -- and it doesn’t feel like ‘thirteen centimeters,’ check your numbers. _ After that, he was hesitant, but he continued to flip through the pages, but there was nothing left. He looked back, and all the words that had been written before were gone too. The only red ink on any paper was on the new note on the very top. 

Going back to the base was awkward with everything he now had in his mind, but upon returning to the room, he handed Rumlow, who stood tense, eyes fixed on the mirror, the single note. Rumlow looked down at the note and nodded his head before he handed it back and crossed his arms. 

“I think there’s magic involved, as much as I hate to admit it.” 

“Magic? With the Asset?” 

“Maybe we should bring the witch in,” Pierce said, not even bothering to answer the questions that he couldn’t be expected to answer with any certainty. It was all just a guess on his part, but it seemed like magic because it seemed to be impossible. Rumlow thought for a minute and then nodded. 

“I agree, but she might do more damage than good. She’s unstable, and Captain America has been sneaking around SHIELD enough as it is, if we brought her in, we would surely be opening ourselves up to strange occurrences that we will have no way to explain without outing our positions.” 

“You’re right,” he said. “Dammit!” He slammed his fist into the wall, and immediately pulled his cracked knuckles back. That wasn’t his smartest idea, he wasn’t as young as he used to be. He held his wrist and ran a thumb over his bleeding knuckles. “Just get him out here, he needs to hear me, but if it doesn’t work, I don’t want us hurt, do you understand?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Rumlow sent a call for a few of his teammates, he was on SHIELD’s top rated STRIKE team, and he was one of HYDRA’s greatest new agents -- he had potential to be great one day, and he had the passion to keep his drive strong. When his team arrived, they were all hesitant, but then they grabbed the Soldier, forcing his face to the ground, holding his arms up behind his back and keeping their feet on his legs and back. Pierce walked in when it was deemed safe. He sighed, feeling ridiculous but then he sucked up his pride and hoped it worked. 

“Anthony. Anthony,” he said before letting out one last deep sigh. “Anthony.” 

And the Asset drooped in place and when they let his limbs go, they fell to the floor like weights. That was magic, there was no doubt in his mind now, and when he met Rumlow’s gaze, he knew the other man was thinking the same thing. They carted the Asset to his cell, and chained him to the cot against the wall. His eyes were open, and he was staring at the ceiling with the blank face he often had right after they put him in the Chair and performed a memory wipe and recalibration. 

“Who is Anthony?” he asked, legs crossed as he shifted on the uncomfortable metal, foldable chair he sat on. Rumlow stood beside him, gun trained on the Asset despite all of them knowing they couldn’t kill their Asset, but they also couldn’t risk his own life, so Rumlow could die in the line of duty. Despite his possible demise, Rumlow seemed uncommonly calm. 

“ _ Ya toskuyu _ ,” the Asset said, his throat hoarse. He needed some water or something, but there was no way they were going to give him water now. He could figure it out, and if it hurt to talk then it was his own fault. He tried to offer him coffee before his meltdown. 

“Who is he, Asset?” 

“God.” 

This was clearly going nowhere, so he tried to go down a different path. Hopefully the Asset would keep it in English because he didn’t need to bring a translator in just so they could also be murdered. He had been working with HYDRA for many years, and he had known of and worked with the Winter Soldier many times in the past, but never had he acted like this before. Never, in the history of HYDRA having him (for over sixty years), had he done something like that. 

“Why did you decide to kill all of our doctors? You’ve really put us out, it’s dangerous to try and recruit new doctors. You know that. So why?” 

“Hungry.” 

“For what? You didn’t eat anyone, you didn’t do anything but put a dent in our plans,” Rumlow said. It was clear he was angry, and Pierce reached a hand up to lower the gun in his hands because they had lost a lot of their resources, their people, and they absolutely could not lose the Asset as well. “You killed good men.” 

“So hungry.” 

“They must’ve fried him one time too many. He’s not making any sense,” Rumlow said, one hand leaving the gun so he could throw his free arm up in irritation. “What’d you need to ask him anyway? Before the massacre.” 

“I received photographs from Anthony, and personal and private notes that are only on paper. Photographs of the Asset in this exact room. Either someone managed to get in here, or someone has betrayed us, and I don’t think it’s the Asset. He was trained to kill, working with him makes death an occupational hazard and the doctors knew that, even if they will be difficult to replace. So, Asset, who is Anthony and how did he get photos of you?” 

“He hasn’t left the cell to go anywhere but the Chair and the bathroom before you came here to ask him questions,” Rumlow said. Pierce held his hand up. He didn’t want Rumlow to talk, he wanted to know what the Asset knew, and Rumlow trying to justify things to make himself sound better wasn’t exactly common practice when someone wanted the truth. He waited, patiently, for the Asset to respond, and finally the Asset arched his back and started to struggle slightly in the handcuffs that held him down, over his head, to the cot and the cuffs on his ankles doing the same. “No, no, you stop that now. I know you know what will happen if you don’t help us, and I know you don’t like it, so just tell me how.” 

“Don’t know.” 

“It seems like you know Anthony very well, and from what some of the notes said, it seems he knew you too, and that he misses you.” He turned to Rumlow. “I need you to find anyone named Anthony who could come into contact with the Asset before he  _ joined _ us. I think I’ll be fine here. Maybe he’ll even talk if it’s just us.” 

“I don’t think that’s--” 

“I’m in charge, and I want you to look into the Asset’s past, so that’s what you’ll do, do you understand?” 

“Yes, sir.” Rumlow holstered his gun and left the cell, although he seemed none too pleased. He leaned forward, his forearms on his knees as he watched the Asset struggle before he finally gave up and relaxed against the bed, the exact opposite of what had happened maybe two or so hours before. 

“It’s just you and I, Asset. So, tell me who Anthony is.” 

“ _ Ya toskuyu _ \-- so hungry.” 

“What do you want to eat, and if you tell me what I want to know, we’ll get it for you.” 

“ _ Ya khochu _ … Anthony.” 

“So you do know him. Is he what you want?” Pierce didn’t like the odd look he got from the Soldier, as if he didn’t understand him. He didn’t speak Russian fluently (there were commands for the Asset that he knew, but not much else), but he knew that the STRIKE team did, they knew many languages, maybe it would have been best to keep Rumlow here. His eyebrows were bushy and untamed when he reached up to smooth them over, his fingers moving over his forehead to massage his temples seconds later. This was seriously irritating, but he had no other way to try and find any information. 

Maybe he could go to Fury, he knew who Anthony was, right? He just hoped he wasn’t one of his pets in Fury’s stupid idea of an enhanced team to save the world full of unehnanced people

“So hungry…” the Asset said again before his face shut down, and he went blank again. Pierce stood up and locked the cell door behind him. He didn’t have time for the Asset and his misbehaviour. He could get Rumlow to punish him, he just needed to get answers. And despite his anger at Fury, he needed the man’s information on this, it was too important to let his irritation turn him away. 

He found Fury in the base below SHIELD HQ, overseeing the construction of the zeppelins. 

“Nick, just who I was looking for,” he said, as he approached. Fury turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised and the other hidden behind his eyepatch. 

“What do you need?” 

“I need a vacation, but I do want your help with something. It’s about your little side project, the uh, Assemblers, or something like that.” 

“The Avengers. What do you need to know about it? I’ve sent you the case reports from Loki’s invasion to you by all SHIELD members who were active during that time. Those in the Avengers included.” 

“Yeah, no, I need to know if you know anyone who goes by Anthony. I don’t have a last name, but he sent me the letter you opened for me, and I’m honestly disturbed by what he sent. I need to know who he is, and what he is, because I think he could be dangerous.” 

“Oh yeah, he’s the guy who  _ gave _ me the letter to you. He showed up with Thor during Loki’s attempted invasion, and the Avengers have been living on his property,” he said. Fury tensed for a second and then crossed his arms over his chest. “Why did he give me that letter, Alexander? From what I hear, he’s not the nicest guy around.” 

“Neither are you, but I’m still your friend, aren’t I?” He let his words sink in for a moment before he continued. “What can you tell me about him?” 

“Honestly? Not much, but I have Agent Barton on it. It seems that he has managed to catch Natasha’s attention, and that can mean nothing good, but Barton’s watching, and Rogers is there too, sometimes, so hopefully nothing too bad will happen without me being informed, and when I know, I’ll make sure to let you know,  _ friend _ .” 

Pierce didn’t move away. He stared out over the construction of the SHIELD zeppelins, ready for Project Insight, and then he nodded. He could wait, but he didn’t want to. Perhaps he should take another crack at the Asset? No, he was dangerous and there was something very wrong with him, and he needed to be recalibrated. He’d let Rumlow know as soon as the man came back to him with any and all information he could find on Anthony. Meanwhile, he needed to lay his snakes out because things were becoming harder to maintain with more scrutiny upon him from Fury mostly, but also from Rogers who had America’s heart in his hands. Nothing good would come from him, especially since he hates HYDRA and was known for attacking them during World War Two when they were open and strong as opposed to sheltered and building as they had become. 

Too much to deal with, too little time to deal with it all. 

He needed coffee. 

Natasha’s POV

The Avengers had been together for a few months at this point, and she had grown more distant with all of them beside Tony. She couldn’t stay in the same room as Banner for more than five minutes, and Barton was always trying to spend time with her, only for her to shut him down. She had been attempting to get through just one of the four locked doors for the entire duration of her stay, but there was no way that she could find beside getting an invitation inside from Anthony himself. But Anthony was scatterbrained, like he had many things he was dealing with at once but couldn’t handle the juggling act all that well. 

She found Tony sitting out on the deck on his personal floor, and his personal chambers, with an ancient looking book in his lap. She knew she was being quiet, but she also knew that he could hear her despite this. Even Rogers couldn’t hear her movements like Tony could, and it was a fact that made her uncomfortable, but she had long since grown used to Tony knowing about her more than anyone else. She had just not found out how or why he knew those things. He shouldn’t be able to relate as well as he seemed to, yet he did. 

“I need someone to help Pepper at Stark Industries, and I said I knew someone perfect for the position. Do you think you could play Personal Assistant and bodyguard for my dear Pepper, Widow?” He didn’t look up from his book. She watched as he fingers traced down the side of the thick page before turning it with a gentleness she hadn’t really equated with Tony at all. He was graceful, but not gentle. Or at least he hadn’t been before. 

“And why would I do that?” 

“I’ll let you in the room you’ve been trying to get into if you do. I know you’ve been eyeing all of my forbidden rooms, but I will allow you into one of your choosing if you do the job I ask you to do. I need your full cooperation and any sloppy work will cost you your life. You may be very good, but you’re not the best, and we both know it. Don’t force my hand Natasha, and I won’t hurt you, but if you ask for a dagger to your jugular then who am I to refuse?” 

“SHIELD could call me at any--” 

“We both know your ties with SHIELD are shaky at best. I warned you against them, and the more you seperated, the more they wanted you to come back, offering you plenty of things if I read their files correctly -- which I did. That’s not really important though, I need someone to protect Pepper while I’m off planet, and you’re the only available person that I know with the proper training required to do what needs to be done.” 

“And if I say no?” 

“Then you’ll never get through my doors.” 

She thought through her options, and she knew that if she hadn’t yet been able to breach his locked rooms that there was likely nothing that could at this point, and he was offering it to her in exchange for some protection for some woman? She could escort her and keep her safe if it meant she could get through the main door she wanted through. She could do anything for that, so she nodded, exhaling sharply. 

“I’ll do it,” she said. He nodded, still not looking up from his book. 

“Good. There are weapons for you on the coffee table, and you should run along so you’ll be there in about two hours. She’ll call me when you arrive. The job pays twenty-six an hour, your training isn’t exactly a common practice, but if anything happens to my human--” he finally turned to look at her, “--you’ll never be blessed with death, but you’ll be begging for it… no matter what he has to say about it.” The last sentence was barely spoken, and she wondered if he knew it was audible to her or if he had underestimated her talents for the first time. 

Then, as if he hadn’t said anything, he turned back to his book and sighed slamming it shut in his hands. The book floated from his hands and to the large wall covered in a bookshelf and two more books floated towards him in return. She read his following silence as dismissal, so she nodded and left to collect the weapons she had been made. 

On the coffee table, a brilliant dark wood that shined with polished and still smelled like oranges, there were a variety of weapons and custom holsters for each of them. There were bracelets that she didn’t understand at first, but then she wrapped them around her wrists, and the blue glow inside the small pill-like capsules wrapped along the length of the leather lit up and suddenly her wrists hurt. She looked down to see drops of blood forming, and then that same blood was drawn up into the bracelets and the glow brightened before it dimmed. She didn’t know how to use them. She had a feeling they were specifically created for her, a new weapon entirely, and the blood was simply a test to make sure she was who she was. 

She looked at the professional attire she had been given and wondered how she would manage to hide everything in such a tight skirt, but she had ways, and apparently Tony knew that. She stripped, not uncomfortable with nudity nor embarrassed by her figure, and dressed in what was provided. She even pulled her short hair back in a somewhat sleek look before she finished arming herself. The heels she was expected to wear weren’t difficult for her despite their height, but she knew that they too could be weapons if she needed them to be. 

Once armed and prepared, she left the Complex in a shiny car she had been ‘gifted’ and ran through the gates that opened on their own and out of the jungle-like complex. Behind her the gates closed and then the further she got, the more she realized that the gates didn’t just disappear from sight due to distance, they were just gone, and the forest around them seemed to never stop to allow room to any sort of bare land. She kept going and hoped she was prepared for the monotonous day that she felt she would be suffering through for days at the very least. 

***

“Ah, Natasha. It’s nice to see you again,” Ms. Potts said upon seeing her walk into the building. She pulled out a Stark Phone and made a call, likely to Tony, simply telling him ‘she’s here’ and then hung up. She turned to her. “I told him I could take care of myself, but there have recently been some threats against my life, and he’s nothing if not protective. I will need you to stay within my general proximity. Follow me and I’ll give you a thorough job description.” 

She fell in step behind Ms. Potts, and listened to her describe the normal duties for any personal assistant. She then listened to the more obvious reasons for her being assigned a bodyguard. 

“There’s an organization, they call themselves AIM, Advanced Idea Mechanics, and they think threatening me in intimidating emails, if there’s such a thing, is going to somehow force Tony out into the public. Of course, Tony has spent decades purposefully not introducing himself to the world, for good reason, but they know now since someone leaked information that the Stark scion was someone I know, as if it wasn’t obvious before since I’m the CEO of their company. You’ve been sent because Tony cannot be here to protect me all the time, and he trusts you for some reason, but he’s needed at some important gathering, so until then, you’ll be here with me, and you’ll be staying with me in my penthouse. 

“Don’t worry, Tony sent over things for you like clothes and more ammunition, and the guest room is secluded, so you don’t need to worry about your privacy being invaded. I would also like to request you don’t invade my privacy either, Ms. Romanov, is that understood?” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“Excellent!” Ms. Potts sat down at her desk and crossed her legs before bringing up documents on the four monitors around her. “Now, I need…” 

How did she get into this mess? When did she ever think her skills would be downgraded so far that she worked as a bodyguard? She listened to the needs of Ms. Potts, her boss, and did as she asked, filing paperwork, taking things around the office. She worked efficiently despite hating the boring and seemingly never ending amount of tedious work that needed to be done. She hated offices, she realized, on the third trip to the fourth floor, twenty-six floors beneath Ms. Potts’ office. 

A Black Widow, a weapon forged in the coldest lands in Russia to be the perfect intelligence agents and assassins, was reduced to carrying coffee around and dishing out notices and letters to employees, letters that she wasn’t allowed to read. She had never thought something like this would happen, but she was getting something from it, and hopefully (and she was very sure it would be something) the price she asked for was worth it. She was also being paid and made specially tailored weapons, so maybe it wasn’t all bad. 

That is until the fourth day into the mission, when she took a bullet to the chest in an attempt to knock Pepper to the ground. The sniper across the busy street, situated through a high up window of a nearby building, had fled by the time she looked up to catch a look at the man she would be murdering, but she realized that she did her job and she had done it well. She also knew that despite the bullet hitting her chest, she wouldn’t die that easily and let Ms. Potts panic before she held her hands in her own. 

“Alright, I need you to get behind the desk and away from the windows. When I get there, I need you to make a cut, deep enough to reach where the bullet is currently stuck, and I need you to either give me something to pull it out, or you need to pull it out, do you understand?” she said, commanding the CEO of Stark Industries like she wasn’t her boss, like she wasn’t able to have her head on a platter should she do something unflattering. 

Ms. Potts did as she asked, and waited behind the desk, her shaking hands holding onto a bloody phone as she called and rapidly spoke. She was in pain, but she knew by the familiarity to the speaker that whoever this person was, Ms. Potts was close to him. She crawled over and pulled a knife from her belt and set it down beside Pepper. 

“I-I gotta go. I didn’t think they’d actually try to do it!” She dropped her cell phone and picked up the knife. She was crying, but Natasha had no idea why or how to deal with it. She reached up to pull the stained button-up open, ripping the buttons off in the process, and yanking the front of her bra up so that Pepper could see the wound. She lifted her hand to her mouth and used the other to pat Pepper’s leg so she knew to cut. 

Her hand was in pain, but not as much as the searing sensation from her side, but Pepper’s fingers moved inside her body and it felt horrible intimate and disgusting at the same time. She hated it. Then the bullet fell out of Pepper’s fingers and Natasha continued to bite her hand for another moment, just to make sure she wouldn’t start sobbing because she had been trained to take the pain, but she was typically not stupid enough to get shot in the chest by a sniper she had almost missed like a baby agent. She dropped her hand and took deep breaths, trying to regulate her heartbeat and breathing, but Pepper’s own loud, distressed sounds made it difficult. 

“I’ll be fine,” she said, eventually, in hopes of calming the other woman down. A woman who hadn’t been shot despite being the target. 

“I-I’ll call an am-ambulance, alr-right?” 

“Don’t. I’ll heal. Just get someone here to fix your window, you need to work out of a less known area. Perhaps an abandoned office on one of the other floors, one without windows for walls.” 

“You’re right. Alright, we’ll do that,” Ms. Potts said. She rose to her feet and pulled Natasha up with her. Natasha kicked her shoes off the best she could and started to walk with Pepper despite the pain in her ribs, because she had no other choice. She had been sliced up by Loki and she hadn’t felt this powerless, and she wasn’t sure why it bothered her so much more this time. 

They got to a different floor and the normal security agents flooded the room and started to ask questions, but Natasha pushed them all away, ignoring their concern. They needed to focus on Pepper, she was the one in danger. 

That night, Pepper brought her a cup of tea and sat beside her on the bed she had been provided. 

“You saved my life today,” Pepper said. Natasha nodded, she had saved her life, but it was all in a day’s work. She typically didn’t save lives, but it wasn’t entirely uncommon. Stopping someone from dying and killing people were very different, but there were still some similarities, and the danger for both were almost exactly the same. She was bound to have gotten hurt at some point, she just felt useless because it had been so damn soon. 

“And I’ll save it again should another attempt occur.” 

“You don’t think they’ll come back?” 

“I think they’re idiots for trying to pick a fight with you. They don’t know who or  _ what _ they’re messing with. You’re under Tony’s protection, and he can be vicious. I saw him rip the metal from a quinjet with his fingers like it was marshmallow fluff. There’s nothing more dangerous than him, at least nothing I’m aware of at the moment.” 

“He’s been busier as of late, you know. There were a few years where he was just mass producing ideas and tech. Sending multiple outlines and designs to me everyday for creation and to be patented. But then, a few months ago, Loki showed up, and he had disappeared during a meeting with me, and then the next time I hear from him, he’s helping stop an alien from letting more aliens invade the planet. He’s always been odd, but I never thought he was what he said he was.” 

“What is he?” Natasha asked. Ms. Potts shook her head. 

“He told me he’s the First Entity, and I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean, but whatever he is, some of the stuff he’s been around to see is… it’s no wonder how and why he can do what he can do, and knows what he knows.” 

“The First Entity? Like, the first thing to live?” 

“The first thing to  _ exist _ ,” Pepper said, but then she shook her head. “But I think he was being dramatic, he can be a drama queen. Then again, he did mention fighting this war with Asgard, yeah I couldn’t believe it either until he went into the nitty gritty, and switched between sides because all he wanted was the damn rock they were all fighting over. The rock it, uh, started with an E, or an A, I think, well he lost it. Whatever. He’s just weird, but he’s my best friend, and I really do love him. He loves someone too, in a romantic way, but I’ve never met the lucky person. I assume he or she’s like Tony, immortal or whatever. He’s always lamenting about his poor dragon, and when I asked, he asked me if I thought he was talking about a literal dragon and then he laughed when I said yes, so I guess they don’t actually exist.” 

“Hmm, interesting. What I do know is that you helped me today, though, so thank you for that, too. I’m being paid to keep you alive, you had no obligation to pull the bullet out like that. Thankfully, we don’t need to worry about diseases or infection like most people.” 

“You’re enhanced?” 

“Yes, but it’s not a common known fact and I’d like it to stay that way.” 

“Right, of course… well, I’ll go order some food in, and you can be big and scary and pick it up at the front door so that nobody tries to murder me over chow mein. Excuse me,” she said, standing and going to call the place she seemed to favour. They had eaten Chinese takeout for three of the now five days of being together at the penthouse. 

Eating was a silent affair since she was still stuck on what exactly Tony was, and what it all meant, and what his capabilities truly were, his limits, but she couldn’t seem to find anything on it from either the internet or from any books she found uploaded to obscure knowledge websites. She read what she could about dragons as well, but she found no proof of them existing on Earth, but now that she knew aliens and whatever else was out there she was sure there were dragons somewhere, or dragon-like creatures. 

She worked for another week and a half like this, and then she was pulled into the stairwell by a group of entirely professional looking people. She tried to fight them off, but they stuck something to the side of her neck and it had her muscles spasming with no pattern she could discern, so whenever she moved (or sometimes when she didn’t) she was zapped with the hot electricity and her muscles gave out. She was tossed into a van after being taken through the service entrance for product checks in the R&D department and whatnot. They tied her up and then pulled the little disk off her neck. She wanted it so she could recreate them for her own purposes, and so she could make sure they didn’t have her as powerless as before. She was sure now that she was more used to it, a second time wouldn’t be quite as terrible, and she would be able to fight somewhat better than before when she couldn’t do much at all. 

They stripped their clothes and got into special jumpers with A.I.M. armbands and logos on the front. The two females pulled their long hair back into ponytails and the men were dishing out weapons to them all. If she had one gun she could take at least two of them out even with her restraints, if she moved herself to the right position of course. They didn’t speak the entire time, and didn’t bother to cover her eyes, as if she would either never get out to reveal the location or the location wasn’t a secret. She had never seen the building before, though, so she would definitely be able to recognize it and all the turns from the SI building they took her from since it stood out. 

She was dragged through another service port and up into an elevator. She was sat in front of a shaggy Russian man she felt like she may have seen in passing. He looked up at her and then at some man beside him, made of what looked like darkness with a general shape of a human hidden with a jumpsuit. Who was this guy and what the hell did they need her for. 

“What do you know of Anthony Stark?” the man, not the shaggy one, asked. She looked for anything to see who he was, and she caught a badge with a nametag half hidden as it was turned to face away from her, but she could read a few letters. She tried to spell them out, find any known offenders or people on the watchlist with the first letters of that name or last name, and she thought of a few, but this had to be only the one. Roberto da Costa. A rogue mutant working with terrorists in an attempt to assist with controlling the general populace under a single, strict mind device, and Anton Vanko. That was his name. 

“I have no idea where he is right now,” she said. 

“But you know where he typically stays, right?” Vanko asked, his voice gruff and worn like the rim of a wheel scraping against the asphalt, the tires having blown a while away. 

“It’s cloaked with some technology I don’t understand.” 

“Have you seen this cloaking device?” 

“No,” she said, frustrated from her position in the chair, having been tied to it. This gave her a means of escape when the henchmen took off, but she was with a powerful mutant and a crazy man, she wasn’t exactly going to get out of this one as easily as she would have liked. That being said, it didn’t mean she couldn’t pull off an escape, it just meant it would be more difficult than usual. 

“What do you know?” the mutant asked. She looked up at his face and was hit with a flare to the eyes which caused her to recoil and close them. She wouldn’t do that again. The hands over his chest, the way he hovered above the ground and looked down on her as if she was a lesser being. She would enjoy killing him just for that. The other one, Vanko, not so much. He was crazy and hellbent on revenge for a cause he hardly remembered, or at least that’s what the file summarized. 

“I know his home is run by a complex AI capable of independent thought. Her name’s WEDNESDAY. She’s a pain in the ass, though. Maybe you could find her snooping somewhere and track them that way?” 

“You seem eager to offer up the man who assigned you to protect his girlfriend. He trusts you, but you don’t seem all too loyal to him,” Vanko said, reaching up to drink from a glass full of what she decided wasn’t water and a little bit of dirt that had managed to get into it in the process of getting her there most likely. “You’re a Black Widow. I didn’t think he was an idiot, but I knew he was arrogant. Give me more information. What region, and does she have access to Stark Industries servers?” 

He pulled the keyboard up in front of the old computer and looked at her expectantly. 

“Near here, but not in the city. He’s a bit up north somewhere near Altona,” she said and struggled against the excessive rope around her chest despite her arms already being tied behind the chair. She made a show of it, and with a flick of a glob of black matter, the rope disintegrated, but it hadn’t hurt her skin at all. She didn’t want to test what that could do to her if he targeted her person but maybe it couldn’t hurt her living body. Maybe it needed something dead and dry like rope? She nodded her head in acknowledgement of giving her more freedom and kept talking. She told them the truth, in a way, she just didn’t give it all to them, or the right names. 

Vanko eventually picked up the keyboard and threw it at the wall. It dragged the flimsy monitor with it. The keyboard shattered, showering her and the floor with pieces of broken plastic, but the monitor hit the wall and fell to the ground, uncracked and functioning. Maybe it wasn’t so flimsy at all. The mutant shook his head and pulled Vanko aside to talk to him. They spoke in hushed tones that even she couldn’t hear from her position. Since they were distracted, she managed to grip a piece of plastic. It wouldn’t cut as well as anything else, but if not she could always use it to try and unknot the knots or test the rope to its limit. If it snapped she was fine to duck behind the desk until she managed to get another weapon, probably a broken glass that she could easily shatter once she was there. 

“Watch her, and I’ll be back with Mother.” 

“Whatever,” Vanko said in reply, standing in the back corner. The door slammed shut behind the mutant. She really didn’t want to figure out who this ‘Mother’ figure was, so she had to get out of there in the time it took for him to fetch her. She struggled in her chair, and Vanko laughed as if she couldn’t free herself. He laughed so hard he was crying, until she fell to the side and snapped a piece of the three barred back off the thing and got her arms up and free. With that she quickly untied the knot and her ankles. Vanko had finally noticed her though, but before he could run to the desk for the phone, or to the door once he realized she knew what he was going to do, she tackled him to the ground and stabbed the piece of plastic into his carotid artery. She pulled it back out and broke his wrist when he tried to grab her before smashing her foot down onto his ankle. It snapped and just to be safe, she broke the other one and walked to the door. She opened the simple door and looked out into the pure white hallway.

It was sterile and plain, straight down. It was long, and she wiped the blood off the plastic, onto her white shirt near the stomach and then ran down the hallway as fast as she could. She got to the end and pulled her heels off, tucking the plastic into her bra seconds after that. Thank god she had been given garishly tall heels. The stiletto points weren’t sharp, but they could be deadly with enough force, and they were thin enough to pierce easier than a wider heel, since a thicker heel would bludgeon. She looked down the hall and started to follow the matrix down. She heard people behind her, shouting and yelling and there were huge black globs of energy thrown at walls that disintegrated them and continued further than it hit, not stopping. She was revealed to some agents inside offices with the walls removed like this. She rolled behind a desk and thought about how weird it was to be able to jump into rooms like this. She flipped the desk so it was more protection against a shaking gun. This looked like a non-combatant’s office, and she used that to turn and throw her heel. It hit him where she expected and he dropped the gun as he fell to the floor. Death by heel was a hell of a way to go. She pulled left it, Tony could replace the damn shoes. 

She had eight bullets left and so she needed to be careful and accurate. Not to worry, she was very accurate, although careful wasn’t exactly the right adjective. She’d say it was more like caution than anything. 

“Find her!” 

“S-sir--” 

“ _ Find her _ ! Now!” 

She took down a few other agents before they could even pull their guns and she picked them both up, tucking one into her slacks before running. She shot as she ran, taking down agents like flies. Her shots hit almost all on the first try, but then she was coming up the ones that were clearly trained to fight. The real security. She could figure that out too. 

When one of the idiots, one of the few who grabbed her from at the SI building (all six of them were waiting in the same area with the same van, and wasn’t that completely idiotic and convenient?) got too close, she shot him in the foot and then hit him in the side of the head with a heel. He took a shot, it missed, she pulled his arm up and he fired two more shots that hit nothing and then he just started shooting, repeatedly despite the disruption it was causing to his grievous head wound. She just directed him and he sent out a round of fire to knock down his fellow guards. It didn’t hit any of them, but one of them must have taken pity because a bullet hit him in the top of the head and he dropped limp. She grabbed his gun and from her place, she went to the ground and started shooting ankles. Two fell and when they were on the ground, the other three ran to where she had been on the other side of the van, and she jumped onto the roof of the van and rested on her back for a moment. They couldn’t shoot her when she was like this. She shot eight rounds, ending an entire clip at that point, blindly to the ground where the two were in rapid succession and there were no more bullets being fired, she took a peek, nearly getting shot in the head in the process, and then shooting the living one. Eight bullets on one person? Dear heavens, that was horrible. This was what complacency bred: incompetence. She looked up at the high rise ceilings and the beams. She shot one of the overhanging lights, and it flickered out, smoking, before she reached down and smashed the butt of the empty gun into the driver window and dropped it in the process. It was empty, and less useful than the other weapons on her person. The crash made someone brave, it seemed, and she took the shot when the idiot moved into her line of sight, where she was yet to be in his. 

From the roof, she rolled to the side with no one standing, and hung to a rail, sliding the unused gun into the back of her trousers and holding the other in her hand when she dropped to the side of the van. She didn’t let her feet hit the ground, lest they take a play from her book and try to hobble her. She was lost for a moment and then she looked through the broken window and shot the person she saw on the other side. That person returned fire and she watched him waste four bullets on nothing. That one had less than six bullets left, and the other was faring no better at this point. Soon enough the water turned on, the lights switched off in the process, leaving things glowing red. 

She took this chance to jump back onto the top of the roof and shoot the one person standing there. She dropped to the ground and searched for keys or a knife. She found the knife first, and picked for more clips before taking what she could. Once she had the key, she jammed it into the van and started it up. She could hear the people shouting and screaming behind her. There were cars following behind her by the time she ran through the garage. She reloaded what she could, driving as fast as she could. 

She knew exactly when it happened, when things turned in her favour. The cars circled her, and she shot the back of all of their windows out before speeding up to match the cyclists who were just barely able to get through her side windows, which others shot back at her, but thank lord for multitasking because globs of black were being thrown out and taking out cars left and right before it struck the left corner of the back of the van, and the metal started to fade away, being eaten by the substance. She hooked the empty gun she had broken the window with under the gas and let the van drive. She kicked the passenger side door open right before she jumped, taking a place behind the guy on the bike. He tried to shoot behind him but she pulled the gun from his loose and unfocused grip out like marble being pulled in by water, and threw the gun off the bike first, before using him as both the guy giving her a ride and a shield to his body who was gaining land as the van faded into nothing behind them. She saw the man hovering in the distance on the wide mirror, and he had stopped throwing darkness now, so that was really great. She used the fact she had no need to drive the bike, the guy knowing she’d take his life in the process of him sabotaging him, and shot the other guy down. 

“Thanks,” she said before lifting a leg up and forcing him off the bike with two kicks. The bike swirled as it lost balance, and she grabbed the handles and slowed just enough before she was about to swirl into the middle of nowhere and die. Once she got a grip, less than a minute later, she sped back up and drove as fast as she could. 

“And then I kicked him off the bike,” she said as Pepper stood in front of her, hands holding her own. “Now I’m here. I survived, and they want Tony. They’re attacking you because they think you’re his girlfriend.” 

“What? Tony? How could anyone think…?” Pepper shook her head before she looked down and saw the fact her feet were burnt and bleeding. She hadn’t known how to tell her that she didn’t want to stand, but also didn’t want to move because her feet burned horribly under her weight, pressed flat against the floor. Pepper quickly helped her move to the ground. She held her with one arm and set her on the ground before she moved back to look at the blisters on her feet, the wounds with asphalt, dirt, and a bit of gasoline that had stuck to the skin from somewhere along the road, seeping in while the blood dribbled out. She hurt pretty bad, but she was also running on the adrenaline of escaping so it hadn’t quite kicked in yet. She was alive, and a lot of people weren’t in exchange. 

“Dear Christ, why didn’t you say anything?” Pepper asked, looking around the office frantically until she grave up and pulled out her phone. “Don’t say another word. I’m getting someone here to help you. I can’t treat that. Especially not when I can’t leave the building. I can’t carry you, I’m sorry.” 

“It’s fine.” 

“Jim’s in Europe right now… fuck it, fine. Anthony?” Pepper asked, looking down at her phone hopelessly and then to the ceiling. “Anthony, I know you can hear me and I really need some help right now. The girl’s injured and I don’t know what to do.” 

“I would have popped in to tell you that there is a fully functioning infirmary down in the R&D, but that’s alright, I was just finishing up. Old ‘friends’ and all that bullshit. You always make a perfect excuse for me to get out of tedious social interactions,” he said before he looked at her. He had just appeared behind Pepper like he typically did in a flash of blue. He looked at her, setting his hands on Pepper’s shoulders. “I can only handle so much stupidity, but I’d like to tell you that I appreciate your use of your heels. I would tell you to teach Pepper but she would use it on me and I don’t feel like being shanked -- let me heal your feet and then I can have those brats taken care of.” He got to his knees and ran his hands a centimeter over her feet and with blue magic, her feet healed rapidly in front of her eyes, as if they were never harmed at all. “Where are they hiding?” 

“I can take you there.” 

“Let me see your memory,” he said, touching her temple a moment later without any warning and there was a flash before her eyes and then he was standing. “I’ll take care of them. Until then, would you keep an eye out on Pepper? I’ll open a portal for you when I’m ready to have you come back to the Compound.” 

He opened a portal of his own and walked through, the portal closing behind him a moment after as if it was never there. Pepper helped her to her feet and held her hands again. 

“I apologize for your troubles, but I thank you for helping me with this. When Anthony’s finished with them, well, they won’t be a problem for any of us again. Have you heard of the Ten Rings?” 

“A terrorist organization wiped from the map by a vigilante.” 

“An organization that Anthony destroyed in retaliation for them stealing his company’s weapons and using them against his greatest customers,” she said. She looked down at her and nodded. “I suggest you let him know where you stand, and what you’re not willing to do, or he will work you to the bone. He’s a fair man, gentle sometimes, but it’s dangerous to forget that he’s not human no matter how well he can assimilate.” 

The portal opened an hour or so later, and she stepped through and straight into a room she had never been to before. Tony was sitting at a desk, working on a small detail in something larger but without being identifiable. She didn’t know what it was, or what it was going to be, but it was currently disassembled on the desk. She looked around and found a variety of items stored in the room. The one that made her the most uncomfortable was the metal arm, held up on a wall along with a variety of other discomforting items. A group of paintings rested against the wall, and the front was of Anthony and a man she knew very well, and she suddenly felt terrified for her life. She was locked in a room nobody else, including herself, could get into. Completely at his mercy, and he knew the Winter Soldier. 

There were no ideas on the how or the why or even the when, but that was a metal arm, and those pictures, those portraits painted were of Tony and the Winter Soldier, there was no doubt about it. That was the man that had trained her, the one that pushed her until she broke, the one that kept pushing even after she was shattered to pieces so she could glue herself back together twice as strong. A man she resented and admired simultaneously. 

“I see you recognize him,” he said, not looking up at her. “Don’t touch his things, he doesn’t like that. Back away from the box on the floor please.” She looked down to see a box, a treasure chest, and took a step back, unsure if there was really any treasure inside. Surely there wasn’t a horde of coins and jewels being kept in a box, right? Not when there were billions of dollars at Anthony’s fingertips at any given time. The Winter Soldier was human, though, he had been brutal but he was human. Enhanced. A meticulous and terrifyingly efficient teacher.  _ Human _ . 

“How do you know him?” 

“I made him,” he said. She took a second to try and connect the dots. She couldn’t manage to draw her lines, though, and so she was left feeling stupid and entirely out of her depth. He smiled at her, and she was almost curious if she could read her mind like he had earlier, if he knew she was extremely uncomfortable and unsure how to make sense of his three word statement. “I made him. I lived in this universe with him since sometime in the thirty-fifth century BC. I’ve lived without him for ninety-nine years, a hundred years on March tenth of twenty-thirteen.” 

“You made him? How?” She could have stopped herself from asking, but she hadn’t. There were millions of questions, but the two she really wanted to ask was:  _ then how did I know him? Why wasn’t he like you?  _ but she didn’t ask those because she didn’t really want to bring up the fact that she had been drilled for hours, until her hands and feet bled and then some to be the best fighter she could be, that any of the other Black Widows could be -- he had made her the best. 

“I found his dying corpse in his universe, I pulled the shield out of his chest, and healed him. I took him away with the full intention to keep him human but… but then he woke up and he lived with me for years and I realized he was aging, albeit slowly, and that I would lose him. I didn’t want to let him go, so I asked him if I could make him immortal. He said yes, so I took apart his body, his genetics, his very soul and I reshaped it into something immortal and perfect for him. I’ve gone the longest I’ve ever gone since he woke up after I fixed him, and I really miss him but this suffering is all for a reason.” 

“He’s your dragon.” He laughed, and reached up to wipe a tear from his eye before standing up. 

“I’m sure Pepper mentioned something, but yes, he’s my dragon. The best dragon in any universe, honestly. Do you want to know who else I found lying on the floor in Siberia with him? After Captain America embedded his shield into his chest and left him to die?” 

“Who?” she asked, despite having a good idea of who it had been. 

“You. And you told me that you were better off dead and that you’d take any life I gave you away because you were tired and done with the world. Weary. I let you die, because that’s what you said you wanted, and ever since then, I’ve been protecting the Natalia’s I’ve found across the multiverse because if I learned anything from travelling across universes, then I know that nobody is the same as they are in any other universe, although they may come close,” he said. He stood up and walked away from his desk before he leaned against the wall, near where the metal arm was displayed. It had no markings of Tony on it, there was no Stark Industries logo, there was no name, no design, there was nothing but a red star on the shoulder, which is exactly like the one she remembered the Winter Soldier having when she was training, but if his arm was here… then who made the other arm? 

“I look at you and see someone with potential, someone who is being destroyed by the monotony of daily life. Of mortal life. I don’t like it. Do you want to know why I’ve been living in this universe for so long?” 

“Why?” she asked. She couldn’t see Tony staying put in one universe for over five thousand years. How had he not gone crazy? How was he not incredibly bored? He had seen so much, or he likely had, so why was he content to hiding away for so long? How had he managed to live a hidden life from a world that never sleeps? Was it magic? Was that the extent of magic? Was it science? He seemed well versed in that too. 

“Because it’s been thousands of years, hundreds of thousands of years, and I’ve been to universes I couldn’t stand and I’ve seen the most interesting universes destroyed in a blink of the eye. James asked me to find a home. A place where we could stay, make the world our own, in a way. I found this quaint little universe, off to the side like it wasn’t very important, and we settled here. It’s beautiful, of course, and I’m going to make it much better than any of those that I’ve visited in the past, but there’s a threat looming over this universe. One that I need to take care of, but I can’t do it by myself, the last time I took matters into my own hands the One Above All lectured me for three hundred years about, how did he phrase it? Something about knocking out the cosmic balance. I called it ‘having a fun Saturday night’ but he’s a bastard like that.” He rested the side of his head against the wall and looked at her with a soft smile, nothing intimidating, something small and not scared but not as  _ loud _ as he usually was. It lacked the drama and flair that Tony’s movements so often held. 

“That threat is what I’ve been preparing for, and James can fight him, yes I’m sure, and he can’t really die, but he can be injured, and if the madman who wants to ruin this world succeeds, then I  _ know _ James will be taken from me and even I would struggle to reverse the effects if I could at all. You see what I can do, or you have an idea of what it is I can do should I want to, but even that won’t be able to stop it, not without too much fighting and… I need you. I need you to fight my battles because if I fight them myself I will bring hellfire upon the universe to save James and I, the universe that I want to call home. We just cannot have that sort of destruction, though.” 

“Why me?” she asked, quietly. Why had he gone to her? She wasn’t special, she was talented, yes, but she was bound to die just like anyone else. She didn’t have magic or immortality, she had a pretty good aim and she was flexible, but she couldn’t stop whatever the hell Tony was talking about. It would have to be stronger than Loki and Loki, despite being a drama queen, was stronger and faster than her, more durable. She was just a human, enhanced but still human. There was no way for her to possibly rival whatever it was that he wanted her to go against, even with the Winter Soldier with her. He was more skilled than her, more talented, she was the second best but everyone in the industry knew that the golden standard was the Winter Soldier. Even the people who didn’t believe he existed knew enough to know he was supposedly the best of the best. 

“Why not?” 

“I can’t help you. I’m physically unable to do what you can, I’m useless.” 

“That’s where you’re wrong. You’re perfect, all you need is a little…  _ upgrading _ , and I’m very well versed in creating things, people, pets, monsters, you can call it whatever you want, but I can manipulate life and rework death. I can make you unstoppable.” 

“At what cost? My humanity?” 

“You’d have to be a human for that to apply and you’re not. Don’t pretend with me. You’re a Black Widow, Natalia. You were born and raised to be the pretty gun pointed in whichever direction your handler wanted you to go. You’re as human as the Winter Soldier was, and I know you know he lacks humanity, I know you knew him, I know because I watched over him, checked in on his from time to time just to try and stop myself from pulling him early. He’s asked me, truly asked me, for  _ two _ things in my entire time with him. Two. A home and a family. I can destroy planets with a snap, I’m not going to let him come back to what I’ve built and realize I haven’t finished my end of the bargain. Do you understand where I’m going with this?” 

“And what will you make me?” 

“What do you want to be?” Tony answered her question with a question and for some reason, out of all the things wrong with their conversation, that was the thing that made her angry. She realized a second later, after she felt her face grow hot and red, that she was upset because she didn’t know what she wanted to be. People weren’t supposed to open up a book and tell deities what they wanted to be, they were supposed to build themselves in whichever image they thought seemed the best. 

For years and years she wanted to be different, she wanted a normal life, or she wanted to be the best assassin there ever was, but now that she was given the choice to truly choose what she wanted to be, she couldn’t fathom the idea of being anything but what she was already. A monster, sometimes. A woman, on occasion. A weapon, absolutely -- but she didn’t know. She wasn’t made of clay, but to Tony she might as well be. 

Blue eyes flickered around the room, so many things were around her, but she couldn’t see the door. There was no way out, at least none she could see. There were no windows, and there were no faulty walls, no weak points she could punch her way through. After looking around and realizing she was going to have to make a decision eventually, she realized that Tony had gone back to his desk, focused on whatever he was tinkering with. When her mouth dropped open, to try and speak, he was quicker. 

“Just think about my offer. Immortality is always an option if you know who to ask, and I’m offering yours free of charge, just like James.” 

From the opposite side of the room, a metal door creaked open and she took the silence and open door as a dismissal. She bolted from the room and the door slammed shut behind her. Instead of running to the place that had become very close to an actual bedroom for her, she took out on the ground. She ran, pushing the door open and running through the cut grass and into the wilderness of earth that grew untamed around the residential building. She fell to her knees and realized she was still in a blood shirt and ripped skirt, still bare footed. She pulled her shirt off and threw it as hard as she could. The fabric untangled and floated to the ground in what had to be the most disappointing thing she had ever seen. 

The crack behind her let her know someone was coming, but she couldn’t figure out who. When a giant, range body came down to sit at her feet she realized that she was being stalked by a tiger. 

Instead of a hostile, threatened creature, the tiger fell down, flopping on his back and rolling to his side. He moved one paw, like a wave of invitation. She reached forward, hesitantly, and when she didn’t move quick enough, the tiger pressed its nose against her hand. She stroked soft fur. Honestly it was a surprise how well groomed the tiger was considering they were in New York where wild tigers really shouldn’t be. The big cat didn’t take anything from her but her comfort, and that was something she wasn’t used to anymore. Even Tony wanted something from her. Where would it end? Would it ever end? Probably not. 

“I’m naming you Piotr,” she said. The tiger closed its eyes, the deep rumble from his chest sounded so much different than a harmless kitten. She was petting a beast, a monster, a man-eater, and yet she had never felt more soothed. “You have beautiful fur.” Piotr’s tail hit the ground with a thump, repeatedly, while she ran her fingers through striped fur. So soft. So huge. She could feel muscle where her fingers made contact with his skin. What she wouldn’t give to be someone who didn’t have to think about everything, who could just demand affection like a tiger, or maybe a house cat (she was honestly more of a tiger person). 

Maybe this gave her a little insight on what it was she wanted. If Tony was some magical humanoid, and James was a dragon, well, the range between those things were seemingly infinite, and she could come up with it, right? Tony asked her what she wanted, so maybe something less than human was a good idea. It would give her the much needed reprieve from everyone else’s bullshit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed that chapter. Who saw that coming? Probably a lot. I tend to stick to that sort of dynamic with Natasha, Tony, and James. Also, I like Pepper, and I like that she can both be a cool and intimidating boss, but also freak out and not have anyone think she's weak because some of the shit she sees is just too much for a baseline human who isn't exactly close to the superheroes like she was/is in the other universes. 
> 
> Thank you and I hope you'll stick around for the next chapter at the least. ^_^


	4. The Winter Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He returns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm still stuck on chapter two of Phase two, so yeah, that's fun. Hopefully this and the last piece will tide anyone interested off until I can get that portion written, but from the looks of things, that chapter is going to be a pain that will take me forever to figure out. 
> 
> Also, there's some gore, but it's not too bad, I mean, not really. But maybe it is and I'm simply too desensitized to realize how bad it is, that's very possible.

Fury’s POV

Two months into searching for the super soldier that Anthony had mentioned and he had found tit-ass nothing. He was going back to his board of many possibilities and narrowing things down. The only issue was that it was backwards in comparison to reality. He was crossing off ‘Special Forces’ and ‘Super Spy’ more often than ‘Alien General’ and ‘Mutant Warrior’ which were things he had never considered to be real until things pointed in their direction and shouted ‘reality’ at him like he was supposed to somehow know how to deal with the madness. How exactly his life of paperwork had turned into a duck chase, he wasn’t sure, but he knew it was bad because he was starting to miss paperwork, and that was never a good thing. 

He called his agents to him. Coulson had scampered off to work in California, and Maria was still working with him but she had been chosen over him, because he had ‘duties’ that took his focus from the Project Insight, to oversee the creation of the zeppelins and background check staff for those aircrafts twenty times over to find out if their mom ate McDonalds or Burger King three weeks ago for a surprisingly late breakfast. She could have all that work to herself, but sometimes background checks and staff screening sounded nicer than chasing rainbows only to find dumpsters waiting at the end with a nice ‘fuck you’ everytime. 

“Rogers, Barton, Romanov. Thank God you got back. Apparently some assholes have better things to do than their fuckin’ jobs. So, I need some information and I feel that you are the most competent people to task for such a mission. Please, take a seat and allow me to show you a twenty-minute, practically pre-made powerpoint.” 

Once they had taken their seats at his round table, he flipped the lights off and sat at the end of the table with a clicker. He felt like an idiot but these things were actually not an entire waste of time. He slid them each a manila file with information on what and who he had been looking for. Clint seemed to perk up, and Natasha’s poignant lack of expression was worse than anything she could have shown. That meant a few things, but the most important was that she no longer trusted him or the others at the table enough to show her opinions. He had been working for nine years, alongside Clint’s stupid ass, to try and break down some of those walls. He wasn’t nearly as altruistic as Clint’s need to make her feel human, he really just wanted to see and understand how she managed to close herself off so effectively and find a way to reproduce it in the training on new agents, but still those walls were once again slammed back in place as if she had been brought right out of Russia. 

“The Winter Soldier?” Steve asked. Fury felt the need to provide that document and the report that Natasha had put in on it. She had been guarding a scientist and the Winter Soldier, apparently, came out and shot the man through her. He didn’t believe it was the same guy, because if it was he was working for over sixty years and that was just impossible for even the healthiest agent, and no matter what, the man was untraceable. Intelligence agencies like SHIELD, who knew everything about just about everyone still didn’t know about the guy. Unacceptable, but not because the man just didn’t exist. 

“Yeah, he’s a ghost story. I mean, he fits the criteria but considering nobody but Natasha’s seen him before we can’t always go off that.” 

“Are you implying that my reports have been falsified in some manner?” Natasha asked, her voice void of emotion, just like the blank slate that was her rather pretty face. Honestly she was the best spy he’d ever seen, wonderful at acting and terrifyingly efficient with everything else. Only upstaged by one in the assassin department, the Winter Soldier. There were others, Yelena Belova, Elektra Natchios, Neena Thurman, Janos Quested, and even Wade Wilson, but none were as good at being both stealthy and effective as the Winter Soldier -- he clearly didn’t exist because there wasn’t an assassin that good, there just wasn’t. It wasn’t humanly possible… suddenly the idea that he was real seemed less stupid than before, but only just by a little. 

“I’m not implying anything, I’m just saying there’s not a lot of information about him out there, including if he exists… that being said, why don’t you look for him since you’re the only one who’s seen him.” 

“Sweet. You got that Tash! I wanna go after, uh, the scary blue dude,” Clint said. Fury rolled his eyes and nodded, yeah, Clint would go look for ‘scary blue dude’ even if Fury said no, so he wasn’t going to argue with the brat. The only issue was that Steve Rogers, the guy who always had an opinion or something to say about everything, was quiet. He looked at him, elbows on the table as he desperately tried to get this presentation started before they all took off despite his wise counsel. 

“What do you see, Cap?” 

“Super soldiers? There are other super soldiers? Other people, like me?” 

“Not so special Star Spangled Banner, but you’ll always be my favourite,” Clint said, patting the blonde head of Spangles while he was at it. 

“There are a few others, yes. I’m not sure who they are or where they come from, but they do exist.” 

“The Winter Soldier’s a super soldier,” Natasha said. She was really on one today wasn’t she? “But I think Fury wants us to sit back and shut up so we can watch his presentation, so if you idiots don’t mind maybe we can let him get this over with.” 

“Nicely put,” he said, not sincere in any way. He got two dead, blue eyes looking at him in response before those glassy orbs focused on the screen. Wow, he needed to have a chat with her. He didn’t know what happened, but something was clearly wrong. He needed to get her and Clint back together, Clint was happier and Natasha was less scary, that’s for damn sure. “Now,” he said, clicking onto the first slide. It was a slide for Wolverine, a man that is probably the closest thing to a perfect soldier as they were gonna get. “This is Wolverine. James Howlett, or better known as Logan. He’s old, older than you Cap, and we don’t have any proof that he knows Anthony, but he’s a viable candidate for being in his works.” Next slide. The picture was a little blurry but it was a photo of the man with Anthony. “This is Wither, Kevin Ford. A mutant. He hasn’t been seen for a few years, but he’s powerful and dangerous. He can kill anyone he touches on a whim. Next we have Eric Brooks, better known as Blade.” He switched the slide, and then again. “Taskmaster. I don’t know his name and neither does anyone else, but he’s an amazing fighter, able to pick up any skill from anybody by observing them, mostly fighting. I think Anthony may have given him his powers.” The next photo was gory and disgusting, but the only one who hesitated and reacted with Steve, of course. “This is Siphon. We don’t know his name either, but he’s dangerous.” He flipped the next screen with a drawing of someone with a mask on. “And that’s the Winter Soldier. He’s also dangerous, but from what I know about the guy, if he knows you know of him, you’ll probably die, unless you’re Natasha of course.” 

“I call dibs on Blade.” 

“I’ll talk to Logan. New him back in the war, he was a good man, good soldier. Didn’t know he was enhanced but it certainly makes sense,” Steve said. So Clint wanted Blade, good, who did Natasha want. He knew from her look who she was going to go after. 

“I’ll take Siphon and move onto Taskmaster, and when he’s inevitably cleared I’ll look for the Winter Soldier,” she said. Fury could only sigh and nod his head. She wasn’t going to listen to him and it was better if they realized now that he was no longer in control of her, Anthony probably was, and a stray agent like that was a dangerous agent, especially when she was being influenced by a wild card like Anthony. He nodded and tossed his stupid clicker to the side before getting up and flipping the lights back on. 

“What are you waiting for? Get moving agents. But, Agent Romanov, can you stay a moment?” Rogers and Clint both left, the latter after a quiet ‘oooh’ before the door shut behind them. He walked around to his desk and sighed as he sat down. He was getting older, not too old of course, but old enough that he was starting to not feel quite as eager to go out and catch the bad guy himself, older as in the fact he wanted to do paperwork rather than deal with the last of the few known/theoretical super soldiers that existed in the world. On the planet at least because Anthony had mentioned leaving the planet before and he did know aliens so the idea he had more alien palls wasn’t too far fetched of an idea. 

“Director?” 

“I’m just gonna ask you and make sure you’re feeling alright.” 

“I’m fine, sir.” He dropped his head back against his chair, she didn’t sound fine. “If that’s all…” 

“Yeah, that’s all. I expect someone real, agent. This is important, and don’t let the boys try and help you on your duck chase because I can’t have them getting hurt. You know how to help yourself, but those boys are dumb dogs, do you understand?” 

“I do,” she said before quickly leaving the office, tense shoulders set back as she stood with that perfect posture indicative of being either uncomfortable or the need to look and feel bigger than someone else. He could understand how she may have felt he was singling her out, okay so he had singled her out multiple times, but she was trained to handle that, Clint and Rogers? No, they’d crush and give in immediately to whatever he said, but Natasha? The Black Widow? There was no way in hell he was going to manage to get her under his thumb on his own and with Clint being a useless ass, and Rogers being himself, well, he was left to his own devices and the hope things wouldn’t get fucked up in the process. 

***

“Goddammit!” His hand smashed down on the horn and he pulled himself up and back a moment later. He could feel the nerves in his neck twitching. Only moments earlier, four months after his assignment was given, he realized that tweedle dee and tweedle dum were perfectly find interviewing one guy and calling it quits while Natasha did all the work, but to know that she had fallen off the fuckin’ radar just as he was getting back into New York was just great. He had been back for a meeting with Pierce, that went beyond ‘bad,’ especially when he had implied that the zeppelins were, once again, not intelligence gathering aircrafts but vehicles of war and now he was getting home. He had seen that paper, he knew it, but there was one thing in his position firmly against the launch of three zeppelins when he hadn’t even been privy to the plan as the Director of the Agency, and hearing the whispers of ‘hail HYDRA’ amongst the people who were supposed to be the good guys! 

He slowed to a stop at the stop light and nearly face planted against the wheel in the mightiest facepalm in the world, but then the car beside him rolled their window down. He looked over the passenger seat at two cops, aviator glasses and otherwise normal faces. He rolled his eyes and ignored their stupid asses, he was sort of having a meltdown because what the fuck else had he been missing? 

The light turned green and instead of going, another police car came for him and hit him straight on his side. His neck was pulled out of place with the sudden movement and down his neck and shoulder, down to his right arm was tingling in the preface of pain. He managed to get up to get a look at what was happening and he was cornered in by multiple police cars, none of which had official liscence plates and a fucking SWAT team was let loose and now they were getting a machine to bust his door open. The gunfire was loud like raindrops falling hard against a metal roof, and he wiped the blood from his eye -- the blood from his eye? He caught sight of his reflection and realized he had face planted right into his wheel because he had managed to bust his eyebrow open. He had some shitty days, like the night he lost his eye, but really? A horrible meeting, a terrifying realization, and now he was being attacked by cops that weren’t really cops? Why must God shit in his breakfast? Really? Did that raisen-assed bastard not have enough people to fuck with as it was? 

Pulling out his sidearm, he hit the button beneath the wheel and unlocked the weapon. He pushed the facade of an armrest away and pulled the four barrelled turret with a grenade launcher beneath it up to shoot at the window. The machine smashed into the window, rocking his car which only had that pain in his neck growing with every tip of his SUV. The stupid AI asked if he wanted to engage and he had to tell the damn thing that he didn’t exactly want to compromise his own vehicle integreity and likely shoot himself before he was well and ready. 

Finally, the machine reared back and he engaged and shot the distracted cops to the ground. He used that moment of confusion and panic to pull into reverse as soon as he could before rushing forward and bursting back out onto the street. He was being shot at through civilian-filled bus stops and finally, he had sped away only to face one familiar black-masked motherfucker with a weapon of some sort in his hands. That goddamn mask let him know exactly who the fuck it was, and he slammed on his breaks too late. His SUV was thrown into the air, and he fell upside down, pinching that already irritated nerve in his already injured neck. He saw boot-covered feet coming close, too damn close, and he found the Mouse Hole and burned through the SUV door  _ and _ the lays of asphalt and into the thankfully dry sewers. He used his phone to navigate until he pushed himself out from under the street and up towards the safest place he could think of. 

Steve’s POV

With a bowl of popcorn settled in his lap, he watched as the most wonderful romance movie of all time slowly ended. He may have been crying, but that music and the tears, and why,  _ why _ did Jack have to die? He wiped his snotty nose off on the blanket over the back of his couch. 

Why sleep in his dingy apartment when he had a whole floor to himself back at Stark’s whatever the heck he wanted to call his massive property? Well, the bed was too soft, it was too quiet, it smelled like campfire everywhere, even his private bathroom where there should be no campfire smell to be smelled, and of course, Anthony was there. He was like a plague, well, maybe not that bad, but they were currently trying to find super soldiers because apparently Anthony wanted to take a super soldier with him and steal the core from the planet or something crazy like that and leave them all to die, so, he didn’t really want to be near him at the moment. The man likely had no idea what he knew, but he knew enough to know that despite the smiles and attempts at friendly banter, they were just two opposite sides of the coin and they would never be able to like each other -- or at least he would never be able to like Anthony. 

Clint was taking a shower because he had been coming over during his search for Natasha. She had dropped off the map, and Clint was fit-to-be-tied in his mission to find his partner. He understood him, he would have done the same for Bucky or Peggy, heck, he did his best for both of them but his best just wasn’t enough, not anymore, not when everything was too soft, too big, and everything smelled like motor oil and not in a good way. 

His front door opened, though, and he slowly stood up, picking the shield up from the side of the couch to see who was coming into his apartment, that he paid for himself, uninvited. He saw Fury, covered in dried blood and favouring his right shoulder. 

“Holy heck, are you alright?” he asked, but Fury didn’t answer. He put a finger to his lips and typed on his phone. In big green letters against a black screen he read:  _ been attacked cant trust anyone _ . He nodded his head. 

“Yeah I’m fine. Got in a fight with my wife. You know how it is.” 

“Uh, yeah, I mean, wait, no, I don’t know how that is. But what’s made her so upset?” he asked, trying to motion to the fact that Fury was holding an injured arm and while he wasn’t dripping blood now he had been earlier. The man was clearly injured but they were being listened to if the next message was to be believed, which it was. 

“Work too much, ‘m never home. Apparently she likes seeing her husband around, who would’ve known.” 

“R-right. Uh, Clint’s just in the bathroom, maybe I can, I dunno, get you a washcloth or something? You can sleep here tonight.” 

“That’d be nice, thanks Rogers.” 

“Of cour--” two shots through the room and straight into Fury’s back. Through the pulled back drapes he saw a man on the roof. He grabbed the shield and ran through the building, bust into the next, jumping and hoping he didn’t die, and then climbing up several flights of stairs before getting to see this guy. He threw his shield out but the man  _ caught it _ . With a whirr and a hiss the shield came flying back to him and when he looked up at it and back at the ledge, the man was gone. He knew what he had to do, and he didn’t want to do it, but it didn’t look like he had any other choice. 

Anthony didn’t seem too concerned. His living area, in his personal chambers, was covered in blue and silver furniture and then there was a single loveseat that was dark red while everything else was muted and cool. He had been pushed onto the couch and handed a bottle of beer and Anthony had sunk on the loveseat, foot under his leg as he sipped his own drink. The man’s relaxed posture almost made him upset, he clearly didn’t value human life like Steve did -- like any  _ normal _ person  _ should _ . The damn room smelled like campfire too, and he didn’t know why or how but it was just stuck in his nose now and it was irritating him more and more with every second that ticked on. 

“You want me to find Natasha because you need her to solve your problem? Why would I do that?” 

“Look,” he said. He put his beer on the coffee table because it was in the early hours of the morning and it was honestly too early for a drink no matter how stressful the day had been. He reached up to rub his forehead and then motion with his hands because he couldn’t contain the full extent of how urgent this was in any other way. “Fury’s dying, some guy in a mask shot him, and now Clint’s with him waiting for him to get out of the ICU and Nat is just… she’s gone and I know they weren’t getting along but they were friends.” 

For a long moment, Anthony didn’t say anything. He took a languide sip from his glass and stared into his eyes before looking away. 

“You’re pathetic.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“I said you’re pathetic,” Anthony said. Steve had heard him the first time, of course, but how dare he say something like that? What gave him any right to say things like that, to insult him like that, and for what reason? Despite his own anger and festering irritation, he wasn’t going to stoop to Anthony’s level. God or not, Anthony was nothing more than a tiny, rude, arrogant jerk. “Who shot him?” 

“He had a mask on, I don’t know who it was.” 

“Metal arm?” 

“Well, yeah but what does tha--” Steve shut his mouth and sighed. That was the Winter Soldier, wasn’t it? The one that wasn’t supposed to really exist, huh? He nodded and realized that he had made a mistake. “Alright, fine, he’s real, I made a mistake, but that doesn’t mean that he should get away with killing Fury. You’re a jerk but I know you couldn’t have hated him so much that you don’t even care if his killer gets away.” Anthony’s grin was enough to have him standing up. He grabbed his shield and put it on his arm before throwing a hand in the air and walking away. “Clearly you don’t care, so I’ll just go try to find someone decent enough to--” 

“I want to help you with this, alright? C’mon, tell me more about him. How did he look?” Anthony had stood up, arm reached out as if to grab him. What was that supposed to mean? Why was Anthony so interested all of the sudden. Unless… super soldiers, Winter Soldier, Anthony’s creation… oh goodness, Fury was right, the Winter Soldier was Anthony’s creation, right? He had been who he was talking about? He decided that he needed to gather more information, that both Clint and Natasha would do this if they were in his place and it was probably the smarter move because of it. 

“Uh, the Winter Soldier?” 

“Yes, him… how do you know about him?” 

“Uh… Fury may have told us about your, um, about how you made some super soldier and he wasn’t really on the list officially because we didn’t think he existed but--” 

“Stop talking,” Anthony said before standing up and walking around the glass coffee table and then plopping down beside him. He grabbed his shield with one hand and tugged it from his arm before setting it opposite of him before placing his hand on Steve’s thigh. “Let me see him.” 

“What?” 

“I don’t have time for you to be a human right now!” Anthony reached up to touch his temple, and upon contact it was like a blossom made of light bloomed in his vision, distorting reality for a second before Anthony sat back and crossed his legs. His hand returned to his thigh and squeezed. “I don’t like you, you don’t like me, don’t worry that’s how it almost always is at some level, we’re like water and oil, I get it, I really do, but for one second I need you to put your righteousness away and focus your talents on making sure that SHIELD cannot under any circumstances send their zeppelins for Project Insight into the air alright? You find Clint, you take Fury to the location I text you, alright? You stay there until six in the evening two days from now. At that time you get in Clint’s car and you get to SHIELD. I’ll do all the heavy lifting if you can just do the end part then I’ll let you take all the credit, Captain Spangles.” 

“I can do that,” he said, rising to his feet and away from Anthony’s grabbing hand. He wiped sweaty palms on his jeans and then walked around Anthony to pick up his shield. “I’ll go right now, and I’ll be there on time.” 

“Good, because if you don’t, you’ll lose  _ everything _ .” 

On the drive back to the hospital to pick up Clint and Fury, all Steve could focus on was: what was  _ that _ supposed to mean? 

James’ POV

The Asset was functional. The Asset smelled the electricity in the air and felt cracking against his skin like static against his toes, but rather it zapped random plates on his faulty arm. His arm wasn’t faulty, but ever since the Asset could remember his arm had always been deemed ‘faulty’ by whatever was in his head that made decisions like that. The Asset was sent out, though, and he jumped onto the roof of the small car with a HYDRA agent having been taken hostage inside. He shoved his arm into the window and pulled Jasper Sitwell from the vehicle before the idiot could say anything. He didn’t know Jasper Sitwell or if he was an idiot, but ‘idiot’ was the term he called most everyone, dictated by _ whatever it was in his head that made decisions like that. _ He shot once, twice, three times before the car came to a stop and the Asset was forced to the street. He grabbed the asphalt to slow himself to a stop, his metal fingers heating up because of the friction. He felt his metal arm go cold, like it was shoved in a freezer, like he was being put back into cryofreeze. He stood up and ran forward before jumping onto the car, the only issue was that it nearly hit him, and his boot caught. His body felt cumbersome, unlike it had in previous assignments. The Asset’s body was feeling strange as of late, but he wasn’t sure how to make it stop. He wanted to hurt people, and eat people, and he knew that the Asset shouldn’t want those things, but he really did. To the point that he couldn’t always stop himself before he acted. 

The car went flying with a grenade against the bottom of the car and Nicholas Joseph Fury fell to the ground with Clinton Francis Barton and Steven Grant Rogers. He was run at by Rogers, but he kept his ground and kicked him away. He lifted the grenade launcher and it exploded upon impact to his shield, sending the man to the ground. At the same time, Barton ran and hopped off the bridge just as Fury took down two of the HYDRA agents behind him. He went to shoot him but the bullets, of which there had been plenty, in the previously unused and loaded handgun at his waist were gone. He dropped the weapon and reached out to grab him but then he was shot in the shoulder, his flesh shoulder. 

The Asset stared at the wound, confused. He had been hit. He had been injured. That was not common. He paused before he realized he was being called over. He took the gun accepted by the men and jumped over the bridge. He landed on a car and stalked down the road, not shooting the fleeing innocents. He had targets and he would attack those, if he could (which had never been a problem before). 

He shot at Barton and hit his shoulder, the man hid behind a car. He rolled a grenade over and held his gun up to shoot whoever fled from the side, but there was no one there. He had seen the man hide behind the car. He turned and saw the man running. How did that happen? He had specifically seen the man get behind that vehicle. Green doors, green doors that were now destroyed. The Asset fell back when he was hit with a shield. He stood up and saw that more HYDRA agents were dead on the ground and that Rogers was moving forward to attack him. He dropped the gun once it ran out of bullets and pulled a knife from his pants before engaging. 

Rogers was skilled, but not enough, but then his arm malfunctioned and went limp. He grabbed the knife with his other hand and continued to move before his arm came back online. He shoved his knife forward, barely missing Rogers and ran it across the van to try and nick him at the very least. What was happening to the Asset? Why wasn’t the Asset functioning properly? 

His nose was hit, and the goggles were a hindrance that he tore away. He punched Rogers in the face, which got a grunt and a rather grand reaction as the man moved to the side bodily. He picked him up by the back of his neck and slammed his knife into his gut but when he pulled his hand away, there was no knife, and there was no blood. He looked around, and he hit the ground, blood trickling from his temple that was hit with Rogers’ shield. He looked up from the ground and saw a man standing there, looking down at him from a distance. 

“Remember me. Please remember me,” the man said. He looked up to find that nobody was standing there. He got back to his feet and caught an arrow right before it hit his face. He threw it behind him and jumped on Rogers, smashing his head back into the hood of the car before he was shot at again and again. Rogers kicked him in the jaw and he fell back. His mask dropped to the ground and he went to reach it, hoping to keep it on for… some reason, he didn’t actually know why. 

“Bucky?” Rogers asked. He looked at the man and cocked his head to the side. He didn’t know who that man was, who Bucky was. He made eye contact with Barton from where he held the grenade launcher. He loaded it with a grenade… where did he get it? It didn’t matter before he jumped out of the way of the explosion and ran for the bridge and the van. He didn’t know what was happening, but just as he went to get in the van that typically transported him, he fell on his side and horrible pain wracked his body. It was worse than The Chair, it was hot all over and cold, and his muscles didn’t know how to react so some were tense and others were relaxing, and then they kept changing back and forth. His mouth hurt, his eyes burned, his hands felt like they were crushed and broken and his mouth opened in a silent scream because his vocal chords burned something fierce. He felt hands on him but he couldn’t do anything about them. 

The Asset was thrown in The Chair. A doctor worked on his arm, flipping at the plates and poking at the insides like he wanted to hotwire a car: quickly and carelessly. 

“Asset!” Pierce said, snapping his fingers in front of his face. He looked at the hand and gripped The Chair. Metal restraints slammed down over his wrists and forearms. “Asset! What’s wrong with you? What happened?” He didn’t know how to reply, so he stayed quiet. But then he remembered the man.  _ Remember me. _

“I knew that man. The one there today. His name is…” he didn’t remember what his name was. Pierce snapped in front of his eyes again to catch his attention. He looked up at the man, Pierce, but he didn’t know what to think besides  _ wrong, wrong, wrong _ . He shouldn’t be there, he knew that, but he didn’t know where he needed to be. His body tensed as he took a deep breath. His lungs hurt, but he could see through the people in the room, he could see through the room. He saw a beautiful room draped in soft fabrics and a man dressed in jewels lying on the grand bed. 

_ “Another victory! I told them my dragon is the best, but they still bet against you. I’m making more money than we could ever spend. You take it and buy more for the horde, I’ll keep it safe until then.” _

“--see? Asset, who did you see?” Pierce asked before sighing. How long had he been speaking? “Is his brain alright?” 

“The board’s lighting up in, uh, ways it’s never done before,” the doctor to the side said, looking at a monitor that was covered in red and green. 

It didn’t matter what everyone else meant, he remembered his name. 

“Anthony.” 

“What did you say?” Pierce grabbed the Asset’s jacket by the front. “What did you say?!” 

“Anthony. His name is Anthony.” 

The force of the blow caused the Asset to turn his head. The slap against his face barely stung, not like it used to. He felt his shoulder hurt and realized that the bullet fell from his skin a few seconds later, clattering to the floor. The doctor on his left arm rushed over to pull his sleeve off and ran his fingers over smooth skin. 

“Can you call for him? Ask for him to come?” Pierce asked. He knew he should do what he was told, but he didn’t know how to do that. He had no phone to contact him with, and he had no way to otherwise communicate. He remembered saying the name.  _ Speak my name and I shall come, sweet prince. _

“Anthony?” he asked, looking up at the ceiling. Pierce followed his eyes. “Anthony?” 

Minutes of silence passed back and Pierce lifted his hand to slap him again but someone grabbed his wrist. The Asset looked up and saw the man holding Pierce back, Anthony held him back. Then he couldn’t breath and he slumped forward. 

James looked up to see someone he wished he’d never see again. He snapped the metal restraints from his wrists with little effort before he grabbed Pierce by the throat and threw him against the ground. He stood up and saw that monstrosity sitting there. He looked at the room full of doctors and handlers. Anthony was standing there, and he was crying? Anthony rarely cried, what the fuck had happened while he was away and why did he-- why was  _ this _ piece of junk attached to him? What had happened? 

He remembered sisters, Little Stevie, Big Stevie, falling, conditioning, the Widows, HYDRA… 

“What happened? What year is this?” 

“It’s twenty-thirteen, December. You’ve been gone for a hundred years, kind of,” Anthony walked around him, and slid his arms around his waist and then up to hold his chest. “Kill them,” he said. He felt a smile and fangs against the back of his neck. “Kill them all.” 

“Do not kill us. I’m ordering you to attack him. Asset, stand back!” Pierce was shouting, a hand in front of him as he panicked and tried to back out of the room. James felt his fangs growing out, and he reached out to grab the man by the front of the perfectly tailored suit and he threw him against the wall. He lunged forward to rip through the chest of Jack Rollins. His nails sunk into his flesh so easily, and he ripped through flesh and muscle with similar grace and finally he grabbed his ribs and started to snap them between his clenched fists before he dropped him. He stood tall, and he felt so good, his body may not remember it, but he used to feel this good all the time. He vaguely remembered speaking with Anthony about transferring his consciousness to a new body and whether he would keep his immortality and abilities. 

He bent the rifle in Rumlow’s hands and moved to grab the fleeing doctors by their lab coats and forced them to the ground. He bit into flesh and stared at Brock Rumlow over the shoulder of a corpse before throwing the body to the floor. 

“It’s been too long, Crossbones,” he found himself saying, ripping the throat open of a screaming doctor on his way to Rumlow. He breathed in the same gunpowder and spearmint scent that he had previously associated the man with. He backed away once he saw the blood from his mouth dripped onto his boots. He clearly made eye contact and moved away, walking towards Pierce with a sway. “Oh, dear,” he said, grabbing the man by his lapels and setting him on his feet. He brushed his shoulders off and then the front of his jacket. “This is, what, two hundred dollars? Must be awful expensive for you. I didn’t want to ruin your good suit--” he slid a bloody finger under his tie and loosened it before taking it off “--but then again, I bet they won’t let them have an open casket viewing. Purely because of how I’m going to rip you open, and spill your guts across the floor. I’ll be careful, these are my favourite boots, they’re my  _ only _ boots, just like this is my only shirt because  _ the Asset _ isn’t a person. He’ll do your dirty work but he doesn’t deserve a fuckin--” 

“I don’t want to interrupt your revenge, but I have a hatchling at home that I need you to feed, and of course I want to show you the den and properly cristen it and all, so please rip him apart so I can rip your clothes off.” 

“Right. Well, damn, maybe I should lock him somewhere, do you have any room at the palace?” 

“One’ll eat him as soon as she catches his scent,” Anthony said. He was right, as soon as One managed to scent him, she would pounce and be nothing more than a skeleton. She’d probably use his ribs to pick her teeth clean of the rest of his body. One was feral like that. He thought about grabbing his heart, but it really was more complicated than it needed to be, under the sternum, or pull the ribs apart. Because he didn’t want to suffer between the choices he shoved his claws into his abdomen and pulled out whatever organs he could grab and let his body drop to the floor. Nobody should be alive long enough to see their insides become their outsides, but he could make an exception for Pierce. 

He killed the few lingering people (why hadn’t they run?) and then wrapped an arm around Anthony’s waist. He nuzzled against his neck, smearing blood into the pressed blazer and the crisp white shirt beneath it as he did so. 

“Take us home.” 

They were in their den, his den, for the first time in so long, and it wasn’t like he left it. Of course it had been moved at least a few times since he had been temporarily out of order, but he could fix it quickly, and it would be perfect and he could continue collecting. The scent of smoke surrounded them, he loved it, breathed it in as he made his way to the odd scent coming from his library before he saw Natalia Alianovna Romanova resting on her back, hands on her stomach, on a lounge chair. He could smell Anthony standing at the entrance of the room, and he took hesitant steps to her. He had reluctantly cleaned the blood from his face, the tempting idea of having a hatchling was enough to get him to do just about anything, but now she was sitting before them. He got down on one knee beside her. She looked younger, not a child, but not someone who had been through years of hard training, she looked soft and delicate, like she did when he first met her, for the first time in all universes, maybe twenty thousand years in the past or something around that time. 

“She agreed?” he asked, brushing his fingers over her hair. She was really there, she was really changing. From the nod Anthony gave him, he was shocked and stunned. They hadn’t met a Natalia willing to live for an eternity, willing to stay with them. As his first Natalia was, the others were typically stubborn, and how had they managed to find such a perfect universe? “You need me to… feed her?” 

“Your magic, yeah. She’s changing. Her request was the best parts from both of us, although she didn’t word it quite like that,” he said. He hadn’t channeled it for so long, but he remembered now like he hadn’t been gone, and while his body took a second to catch up, he managed for the most part, and he sent out a stream of red magic into her chest. Her body jerked forward before there was a sharp inhale and she fell back against the seat. 

Anthony’s hands came down on his shoulders and he felt his pointy chin on his head. 

“She’ll be asleep for about another week after this, but she’ll wake up immortal like you did.” He twisted in Tony’s grip and wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his cheek against his waist. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you, too. I’m glad you’re back. It’s been a hundred years. There are approximately four years before the Mad Titan descends upon us and I don’t want to lose you, not when I just got you back, so we have to start preparing now,” he said. Anthony’s fingers ran through his greasy hair and pulled out the knots that tangled the ends. “I need you to get Captain America in line, keep him in check. He wants the Bucky he remembers back, and I know you aren’t him but he’s a very important piece in the game.” 

“I know, I know. I won’t promise him Bucky back, but… I don’t trust him not to try to murder me again, but I’ll try, for you, for the world, for whatever future we can have in this universe,” James said this with a heavy heart. Steven Grant Rogers had left him to die, shield buried half through his chest when Anthony found him. He killed his Natalia, too. He hated him, or with his memories of all the horrible versions of the man he had met in the past, he hated him, but this Steve was… this Steve hadn’t killed him, he had been surprised to see him, like the original had been, but he wouldn’t tolerate the same behaviours, the same ethics that all the Steve Rogers he had met in his travels seemed to have. 

“That’s all I ask. You don’t have to do anything if you feel uncomfortable, but it would just be easier in the long run--” 

“If he had someone he could trust, someone like me to guide him. I know,  _ sokrovishche _ , I was there when we came up with the plan. I just didn’t realize it would take so long, again. I should have, but I’m glad I have you to help me this time, rather than running across Europe in an attempt to find someone who wasn’t there anymore.” Anthony pulled him up and wrapped his arms around his neck, pressing his face up against his throat, and James inhaled the smoky cedar scent of Anthony’s fluffy hair and cried. He wasn’t the only one shedding tears, he knew that Anthony was crying too but he also knew that Anthony didn’t like it when his tears were mentioned, so he didn’t bother to try and comfort him in any other way than holding him close and tight. 

“We need to get you cleaned of those bloody clothes, and I need to make sure everything’s healed. We’re taking a shower, too, your hair needs to be washed desperately, and I need to braid it again. How do you feel about enchantment beads?” 

“You’re going to use the enchantment beads again? I’m getting special treatment. If I didn’t hate not being with you then I’d say we should do this more often, but let’s not do this again unless we absolutely have to. Will you wear my necklace again?” He ran his fingertips over Anthony’s bare neck, and then he dipped his hands against his collar bones. He had jewelry and armor fitted for his skin here, vivid and very dark rubies the colour of fresh spilled blood. He always looked great in red, and while Anthony had a predilection for gold, he was always more interested in silver. They were both soft metals, but silver was cool enough to bring out the darker purple and blue hues in his favourite gemstones, while gold often brought out the oranges and yellows that he didn’t much care for. That being said, Anthony liked dressing him up with golden trinkets just as much as he liked dressing Anthony up in silver. 

“I wear as much or as little as you want once I get you cleaned up.” 

“How can I deny such an offer?” he asked. Anthony rolled his eyes and grabbed his hand to pull him out of the library and towards the bedroom that he couldn’t access in his draconic form. He missed the view that their castles of the past offered him, their towers, but it was a modern cave, built under the structure of homes Anthony had built and he had yet to see. Their bedroom and through the fur and rug covered stone floors and into a stone bathroom with a huge bath built into the ground and in the corner a walk in shower. He had lived in all times, he had lived in the forty-fifth century on Earth in some places, where the world was truly futuristic, and he lived in stone-age Earth just as he had lived in Ancient Rome-esque times on planets far beyond their current galaxy and in floating houses on other planets, in different realms. He had lived in the Dark Dimension for years and years while he had also lived in other places like Alfheim, and even the Negative Zone (he had been there within the last thousand years too, lived there for six hundred and nine years which due to time distortion was the equivalent of over two thousand Earth years). 

Anthony’s nimble fingers unbuttoned, unstrapped, unzipped, and otherwise removed each piece of the tactical gear he wore. He ran his fingers over where his scarred shoulder met with the arm HYDRA had attached directly to his bones and nerves. Anthony had seen the original arm, he had been outraged and horrified, and he had used magic to numb him long enough to take it off. His fingertips ran over the deeper, uglier scars on his body this time around. James looked at his own hands, nails sharp but translucent in this form. He must have not had access to the defensive healing factor but been able to somehow break out the claws when he was panicked. Honestly, his time with HYDRA was very much like it had been in his original universe, and he could hardly remember those times. He knew a few things, though, in his original universe he hadn’t been taken in by HYDRA. The Soviet Union had pulled him in and trained him, an amnesiac that never recovered his memories (even after he was free he couldn’t remember his past life). He was an assassin with little to no morality or ethics (that’s why Captain America had killed him, because he was evil and he had Bucky’s face and it made him upset). He had cared for the Natalia of his origin (the point where he was first created within the vast branches of the universe) like a daughter up until her death, and he still missed her. Here, in this universe, he could remember his past clearly, but he was hurt because is that how he would have been if he had never been frozen? 

Was it wrong that he wouldn’t change a thing? He knew how new universes were created: when an action ripples in the fabric of reality and splits into its own alternate universe. He wouldn’t change even the smallest detail because he would be different somehow, in some way he didn’t know, which was always frightening. 

He decided quickly, then and there, that he never wanted the life of who he could have been originally, he liked his life now, he liked it too much to give up or to squander with wishes for something more because how could he change something that was already so close to perfection? 

Anthony pressed soft kisses against his shoulder and then he felt the pain against his bones that meant he was unweaving the metal from his body. He tensed his body and tried to stop himself from crying, but by the end, when the arm finally hit the ground like the scrap metal it would be turned into, Anthony was wiping the tears from his cheeks and healing the raw, exposed nerves, muscles, and bone. 

“I could always--” 

“I love my arm, the one you made me. It’s better than any flesh attachment, and it keeps me safe.” 

“Alright. I thought having it back may have made you want your real one back.” 

“The arm you made me is my real arm,” he said. He moved to push the jacket off of Anthony’s shoulders and unbuttoned the bloody shirt beneath it before pushing that away as well. He tapped the diamond cage around the star in Anthony’s chest. “You could heal this too.” 

“I could, but it’s the only proof of having a heart that I have.” 

His nails cut through the thick leather belt around Tony’s waist and he cut the material where he couldn’t easily unhook the clasps. Anthony huffed and ripped the buckle from his belt and stripped the holsters around his waist. He moved back and kicked his pants off, and out of impatience, his boots were left resting on the sink counter not too far away because he didn’t want to deal with unlacing those. Anthony had something similar in mind because whatever was on the floor around them or on their bodies was now against the back wall in a heap of dirty clothes that would be better off burned, and of course the inferior weapons that HYDRA fought with. 

Anthony was shorter than him, but he had a larger presence, he always had. He was loud and he liked to talk, James didn’t like the attention of too many people, and Anthony had always taken care to guide others away from him whenever he felt entirely unequipped to deal with people. Despite his height, that presence made itself known when he easily pushed James back into the glass shower, opaque glass that kept their bodies mostly obscured from the world outside the shower. Of course, nobody else had access to the den (well, except Natalia now but she was still changing) so there was no reason other than the aesthetic it provided. 

The shampoo that Anthony lathered through his hair smelled like desert sage and mint. After so long without any form of care be it from himself or anyone who had previously imprisoned him, just the proximity of Anthony was nice, and the fact they were doing something so mundane was nice, like coming home -- which is essentially what he had done. 

In return, he had begrudgingly washed Anthony’s hair and wiped the scent he had managed to mark him with off. Anthony told him they’d have time to properly satisfy his needs later, but he had things to be doing so out in the bedroom, he sat on the bed, not bothered by the chilliness, although Anthony had bundled up in some clothes that he was sure now belonged to him. Of course Anthony had known what clothes he would like and his size, they had been together and unchanging for millenia. 

With a box of enchanted beads in hand, Anthony pulled him back so he could brush his hair out on the bed and braid in the sigiled pieces of metal and in some cases dried, drilled, and carved pieces of bone. When that was finished, he was pulled back against Anthony’s chest. Anthony was smaller than him, but he was far stronger when he wanted to be. He was well aware of the illusion of superior strength and reflexes that Anthony let him have, but he also knew that despite his many years, Anthony didn’t much care for fighting like a human when he could use magic or even summon his arm to keep him safe enough that he didn’t need to worry about getting stabbed in the side. Then again, Anthony was immortal and no mortal wound would kill him no matter how bad, but he still felt pain, if not even more than most because of his enhanced senses. 

“I need you to help me deal with the HYDRA infestation. Steve’s going to be there and working on my orders. I’m going to do everything before he gets there, so when I start killing people I need you to keep anyone from running off to alert anyone else. Pick off the stragglers, and when Steve comes to take all the credit and destroy the zeppelins you can make sure he doesn’t die or stray off course, and then do whatever it is you want to do, and maybe you can eat someone, or a few someones.” 

“Sounds… fun. That’ll be tomorrow?” 

“In about seventeen hours. It will only take me from three or so till fifteen before six to kill everyone and get everything ready. Have zeppelins to program, weapons to sabotage, the usual. Pierce is dead, and the World Security Council is waiting for him to show up so I may glamour myself and take his place--” 

“No. Don’t do that.” 

“Alright. I’ll show up myself and tell them that my dragon boyfriend murdered him because he was being held prisoner for sixty-eight years. Oh, and that Pierce was HYDRA this entire time and nobody knew,” Anthony said. He was perfectly fine with Anthony doing that, but he didn’t want to taint Anthony with even having to try and put that man’s face on. “And in those seventeen hours, I would like to reattach your arm and come at least twice. It’s been over a hundred years since I saw you last, and you still need to scent me.” 

“Well we better get on that, shouldn’t we?” James smiled and turned to rest between Anthony’s knees and kiss him slowly, languidly because even though he wanted to ravish him, they had forever now. He didn’t need to go be magically wiped of memories for any length of time again, as far as he was aware anyway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading!


	5. Drop the Zeppelins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, good ol' Cap is really confused, but to be fair, James is pretty confusing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so this isn't anti-Cap, not really. It's a little critical, but remember that the Captain America of this universe, Earth 7010, hasn't done what the Captain America of James' original Universe (Earth-50582, if you were curious -- one digit off from an actual canon, universe that exists actually), so James' hatred isn't because of things he's done in the current universe, it's what his other self has done, even if the hostility from James still stands. He's actually not a terrible guy, just a little lost, but who isn't? 
> 
> Also, I'm changing things from all universes because I can, so these guys are all sorts of weird and are sort of separate entities, even though there are some clear parallels between these guys and their other versions. Really, I just wanted an excuse to make a magical, bamf, immortal Tony, include a dragon, and play with the multiverse because the multiverse is great in the way that it means anything's possible. So this is totally canon to this universe because this universe is made up and totally plausible, so yeah. I didn't know how to tag that. Also, I'm totally bringing my favourite parts of all the universes I know (or find while researching fort his fic) into this one. C:

Steve’s POV

Clint had been hanging onto his shoulder for hours asking him what was going to happen and all he could tell him was the truth: he had absolutely no idea. After they were intercepted by the Winter Soldier, who happened to be his best friend (or whatever was left of him), they had miraculously been saved by Maria Hill who took them to the location that Anthony had apparently given her in case they were trapped. How that man managed to know things before they happened he had no idea, but he didn’t like it. He left the safehouse at six like he was asked and arrived at SHIELD HQ only to see the place in ruins. There was ice coming up from the floor in huge pillars of jagged edges and there was frosty blood in patches against the inside of the building, on the walls and even the ceiling. Following all of those things were huge gouges of what looked like giant claws. Whatever HYDRA or Tony had brought out, he really didn’t want to deal with it. 

Something moved off to the side, and he chased after the only sign of life he had found only to see Bucky against the back wall. 

“Do you remember me?” he asked. Bucky nodded and then nodded to the side where Tony was hunched over one of the many computers in rows on the many long desks. The display screen was crackling and broken in, randomly flashing colours, and then it shut off and all the electricity around the base did so as well. Tony stood up and walked past him, brushing his shoulder against his before he disappeared in a portal of blue like usual. He looked up at Bucky who was staring at him. He wasn’t in tactical gear anymore, well, he was but it wasn’t the same. It was like a wetsuit almost, except the left sleeve was gone down to where his metal arm attached to his skin. When had he lost his arm and had that prosthetic even been a choice? Something was different though, about Bucky in general. He wasn’t looming and confused like the Winter Soldier he had seen, twice, nor was he goofy but determined like Bucky, he was just… he was just  _ different _ . 

“I’m taking you to the zeppelin construction. You have to take this key,” Bucky handed him a key and started to walk and talk, “and twist it in each command center of each zeppelin. Good thing, you have a flier on your team, bad news, you’re not going to have to adjust so whatever you see, just know that whatever I look like, I’m on your side. I want HYDRA destroyed just as much as you. And keep your shield away from me, far,  _ far _ away or I’ll  _ break it _ .” 

Steve followed after Bucky, confused by everything he was saying. Before he had time to think Bucky fell on his hands and knees and in a few moments, there was no human standing in front of him. There was a giant dragon, blue and silver scales with patterns of some sort in colour, and a shining metal arm that seemed to morph with his body. He looked up at the behemoth that had just been Bucky and then followed after him, shield on his back, gun at his waist, and key in his hand. He pulled his gun and grunted when he was abruptly grabbed by the back of his shirt and dropped on a leathery-yet-scaled back. He nearly lost his grip, but when they broke through the opened lot, coming up from where the zeppelins were rising into the air, he realized that Bucky as a dragon (he never thought that’d ever be something he thought about, not even as a joke) was very agile and gentle, and he didn’t really have to hold on to stay on the extremely level back. Bucky hovered and he jumped up into the control box and took down the seven agents inside. He twisted the key and jumped back to where Bucky was waiting. 

The next zeppelin wasn’t nearly as easy, and men with weird jetpacks jumped from the side and hovered to fight them. Bucky’s claw came too close to his face, but the door slammed shut on the control box and he twisted the key only to watch as Bucky opened his mouth and clamped down on someone before spitting out a jetpack. Like two ice cubes in the air, two other men were frozen into blocks and crashed to the water. He wasn’t sure if they were going to survive being frozen like that or hitting the water, but Bucky’s wing rolled out from where he was and Steve took that as an invitation to slide down the scales and onto his back. 

The last zeppelin was the most difficult, and when he got to the control box, he was nearly knocked out by Brock Rumlow. He thought he was an ally, he had trusted him, and in the end Rumlow had been just as bad as the others. They fought, but clearly Rumlow outmatched his skill while he outmatched Rumlow’s strength. They weren’t better for anyone because by the time he twisted the key inside the tiny box he was supposed to twist it in, the other zeppelins were arming themselves however they were designed. There were missile shots, and he twisted the final time just as those missiles all crashed down on Bucky. 

He was falling down, inside the zeppelin, but without power they still hovered. The real issue was that the missiles had shattered scales that punctured the main support so they started to fall fast. He brought his fist down against Rumlow’s stupid face again, but it didn’t make him feel any better. He looked out of the window and saw that Bucky wasn’t gone, but he looked injured, there was blood dripping from his chest. He had expected him to be dead, but then again dragons, in fairytales, were always really strong. He then felt the air around him growing colder and the box ripped open. He fell into a greedy paw and landed on the ground. 

Like the good ol’ days, Bucky was beside him again, holding his cheek. This time he was methodically checking him for injuries a half second later. He saw the explosions in the background of the zeppelins crashing and gas being released and lit ablaze. That was the end of HYDRA, but it was also the end of SHIELD. Steve didn’t know what he was going to do without something stable like that, the Avengers weren’t even a solid idea, and while he just got Bucky back there were obviously some major things he had missed since they last saw each other. Bucky pushed him on his back and slapped his hands away every time he tried to touch him. Eventually he closed his eyes and let Bucky do whatever it was he wanted to do with him. 

He woke up in his room. The room he had at Stark’s compound was the size of his entire apartment, and he was all alone. He felt fine, like he hadn’t struggled and fought to fight Rumlow and a bunch of other HYDRA agents on the small decks of the control boxes with the computers and weapons. Beside that, he didn’t understand how the zeppelins were effective tools of war, but of course there could always be some major improvements that HYDRA had just not used to destroy the world, or whatever it is they wanted to accomplish with this whole thing. What was Project Insight anyway? He stopped it, so that was probably a good thing because HYDRA built it for some reason. Either way, he was feeling good. 

Entering the residential building kitchen he saw a bunch of people sitting around the counter, Bucky and Clint included. 

“So you’re seriously like, not dating Steve?” Clint asked. What the hell, who was ‘not dating’ him? Bucky? Maybe a lifetime ago, but he just saw him turn into a dragon and he was pretty sure he ate someone, so unless that was a fever dream, he’d rather stay friends. He didn’t know else would be ‘not dating’ him. 

“Steve’s awake. Smelled him walk in,” Bucky said, looking over his shoulder at him. “You need a shower, you stink.” 

“I’m feeling fine, thanks for asking,” he said, moving to sit against the counter. “So, who’s not dating me? I’m curious. I’m assuming you were talking to Bucky, but I mean, I only got the tail end before my presence and stench was announced.” 

“Of course you’re feeling fine, probably better than fine. Anthony healed you,” Bucky said. The man jumped up on the counter, dangling his legs off the edge and looked at the person against the back wall talking into his cell phone. There was Tony, whispering to his phone against the wall while it seemed that someone was attempting to cook. Key word: attempting. It looked more like charcoal than anything edible, but maybe it was a draconic delicacy? 

“But I’ve found the thing he cannot do: cook,” Clint said. Bucky hit him on the head with a spoon. Albeit playfully, the idea of Bucky not being the Bucky he knew in the slightest made him afraid and uncomfortable. What if he did something or said something to offend him or upset him. He was lost in thought when suddenly Bucky came up and hugged him and started to rub his cheek and jaw against his hair, roughly. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, hands on Bucky’s chest in a faux attempt to push him away. He missed this affection, sue him. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Bucky said, continuing to do whatever it was he was doing until he moved onto Fury who sat at the table in the room away. When did he get there? Steve looked at Fury and his bandaged torso and body and genuinely wondered how exactly he was going to take Bucky rubbing against him, but Bucky grabbed him and rubbed his cheek against his bald head and then his stubbly cheeks and shoulder before he backed away and moved to where Tony was walking back towards the counter. 

“Don’t give the man a heart attack,” Tony said, likely to Bucky who smirked, hopped back up on the counter, and poked at whatever was in the pan around with the spoon he hit Clint with. “But now you smell like them.” 

“But they smell like me.” 

“Alright, am I missing something?” he asked, leaning on the island on his elbows. 

“He’s scent marking you,” Tony said, like it was an everyday occurance before he used whatever magic it was that he used to send the pan away to wherever he sent things like that and a new one was on the stove, or maybe the same one but cleaned out? He was sure how magic worked, but it was weird to watch it happen before him like it didn’t matter too much. Was that not weird for anyone else? Nobody else said anything. 

“Oh my goodness! I forgot. Did you find Natasha?” he asked, turning to Clint who perked up and then deflated. 

“No. I can’t find her anywhere. I’m running out of people to try and poke for information,” he said, his chin beginning to twitch and quiver, but he took a few deep breaths and shook his head. “I should probably be doing that. If I can’t find her… if I can’t find her….” He kept scowling, like whatever word he needed to say was stuck in his throat. He moved around to pat him on the back. He had dealt with losses and his people losing others, so he knew that even though Clint seemed more attached to Natasha than she did of him, he really did care for her. It wasn’t some sort of professional relationship, he really did care about her wellbeing and health in general, not just as a partner, they were practically siblings, although more violent than any siblings he had seen. 

Bucky started snickering though, and he shifted on the counter so he could cross his legs and hunch over to look at them with a wide smile revealing fangs that were anything but human. It wasn’t just the odd behaviour, but the way he just waved away whatever Clint was feeling that upset him. He was trivializing and invalidating Clint’s emotions and that was just wrong. 

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, wrapping an arm around Clint. That man might look like Bucky, but he couldn’t let the fact he had, at one point, been his world override the disgust at his dismissal and borderline mockery. 

“Natalia’s taking a nap, she’ll wake up in a few more days good as new,” Tony said, glaring at him like he had somehow done something wrong. Since when did he call her ‘Natalia’ and why? It had to be something to do with Bucky, because everything seemed to change in the few days since he first realized he was still alive. He had been the Winter Soldier and Natasha had been adamant about his existence so maybe they had known each other out of a professional way? Like, lovers? No that didn’t make sense. He didn’t really know. 

“Why didn’t you just tell us that? We’ve been worrying for weeks!” He tucked Clint under his arm and only pulled away when he realized that Clint was pushing him away. The man looked up at him, and then turned before walking outside with no words to say. He was probably climbing up to the roof, it seemed to make him feel better. With Clint out of earshot, he felt like he could be a little more honest with exactly how worried they had been, mostly Clint’s endless and gruesome ‘what if’ scenarios he stayed up all night worrying over. 

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d notice immediately, or work yourselves up over it. She’s been healing. She needs to sleep. She needs to adjust.” 

“What happened to her?” 

“I can’t tell you,” Tony said. Steve took a moment to try and read anything from his face but he wasn’t informed enough to take any of the minute expressions as tells of anything. He slammed his fist against the island, shattering the marble and ended up with a dagger to the throat and claws in his arms. He struggled and realized that it was Bucky that had him at knifepoint. 

“What the heck, Buck? Lemme go. I wasn’t gonna--” 

“That was Elvish marble,” Bucky said, barely above a whisper. Steve took a second to look at it. Yes, it was beautiful, white with golden and shimmering blue veins running through it, but he assumed it was just paint or something. He wasn’t exactly up to terms with what fancy houses had in them anymore, what styles were in fashion and whatnot. How was he supposed to know it was ‘elvish marble’? 

“I-I’m sorry.” 

“I’m not allowed in Alfheim anymore,” Bucky continued to say. “That means I can’t fetch a replacement, and all Elvish wares are enchanted. It’s broken, our magic can’t fix it without distorting the colours. I  _ liked _ that marble, Rogers.” 

“I said I’m sorry. Can you just stop being weird for like one second? And put that knife away before someone gets hurt!” 

“James,” Tony said, or rather commanded. And while his words had no effect on the brick wall against his back or the menacing black blade against his neck, Tony managed to ease the beast, and Bucky backed away before he sat back on the counter away from where he cracked it and glowered at him from the distance. That was real hatred. And he was throwing it at him because why? Because he cracked some fancy stone? That’s not what was important. They were hiding Natasha from them, her team, and he hadn’t even seen Bruce. The man could be dead for all he knew, but now he was dealing with whatever the heck Bucky was on top of the cyclone that was Tony Stark. He couldn’t deal with it, he just couldn’t. 

He walked out of the kitchen and outside. He went for a walk on the land, except the animals around him growled at him, like they were picking up on whatever anger Bucky had been expressing toward him. He just needed a minute but the tiger slinking around growling at him and the hyena pack cackling off to the side wasn’t making him feel any more relaxed like he had expected to be. 

When he returned to the kitchen, it only held Tony, who was eating Fruit Loops out of a coffee mug. He didn’t know why because there were plenty of bowls, but he didn’t want to say anything and get harassed by people and animals again. The countertop was discoloured where he had broken it, but to be fair, it wasn’t broken anymore and the scorched paths along the surface didn’t ruin it that much, it was still nice enough. Tony looked up at him and pushed the box of cereal, a jug of milk, and a bowl with a spoon already in it towards his direction. He took that for what it was and poured himself a bowl of cereal. He put the milk away and sat down to eat. It was a quiet affair and Tony didn’t say anything so he decided that maybe he shouldn’t either. That was until he was too curious and he had to talk, he needed to break the silence, a very tense and uncomfortable silence on his end. 

“I’m sorry about your countertop.” 

“This is James’ home, and he’s always protective of his territory and everything on it,” Tony said. He took another bite of cereal and crunched away without much care. He also didn’t seem concerned in explaining any further than that. 

“Did you, uh, build it for him?” 

“I built it with him in eighteen ninety-eight. I’ve updated some parts, clearly, but the base stands the same, the colours are the same and so are a few of the fabrics. He is very particular about things like that.” 

“Uh, but, so… is he not James Barnes?” 

“He is. I transferred his consciousness into this reality’s body. You see, the James Barnes of this universe died moments before his birth, and I just put his soul into a body, locking his memories away in the process. He’s the man you knew, but he’s been the James I know for thousands of years. Thirty-two years of living his life as a human with you isn’t about to change him. Change for beings like us is gradual and not common, not now that we’re so old.” 

“If I had known… if I had just looked  _ harder _ …” 

“Then he would have killed you. He started to remember because I visited him and the spell broke. He stumbled upon you coincidentally at the right time and place,” Tony said, drinking the milk from his mug and then the mug vanished along with the spoon. “Don’t antagonize him because I assure you that in a fight, you will always lose, and I don’t want to scrape America’s golden boy off my floor, again, and I don’t want to deal with the aftermath of your death for at least another decade. I’ll talk to him to not threaten you again, for my sanity, but refrain from coming to our territory and shattering our property because you were given an answer you didn’t like.” 

“Wai--” and Tony was gone in a blue portal closing around him a second later. He sighed and ate his cereal. Without SHIELD he had no job, he had no way to pay for his apartment, so he would have to live with Tony, and now Bucky, or whatever he called himself, until he could figure things out. Until then, though, he’d be trying to scrape together a decent apology, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong enough to warrant a knife to his throat, to give to Bucky about the elvish marble. He then had to get all of his belongings from the apartment and get it back to his room at the Compound.

After he washed his bowl and spoon, he dried them and put them away before trying to lay out a plan on what he needed to get done. Fury had disappeared to wherever he was staying most likely, and he hadn’t seen Clint since he left to climb to the roof and calm down. He went back to his room and found it, like everything else, smelling like campfire, like someone came in and lit something on fire. Couldn’t he at least get a whiff of fiery marshmallows to make it more tolerable? He sighed and cleaned up his area, making sure that everything was in order but not too orderly because it looked too unfamiliar like that. There had to be a balance. 

After staring at the shield against the wall, he went to the gym. It wasn’t like a punching bag in a room with dirty mats, it was like a fully equipped gym that could be used from everything to boxing to training assassins or even practicing archery, it had a bit of everything. Being a simple man, he stuck to the punching bags and smashed his fists against the bag more than he usually could without breaking it. He hadn’t often used the facility for working out, but these bags were amazingly durable. Must be magic. 

Back when he was a kid he used to love the idea of magic and fantasy worlds. People like elves and centaurs interested him back then, but knowing that magic was real, that those fantasy things weren’t all that fantastical, made everything bittersweet. 

In fact, if he could go back to simpler times, he would, but it wasn’t in his cards apparently, so he would just suffer without the hope he had in the forms of his friends and family from the past, because they were gone. Peggy was dying, and she hardly even remembered who she was anymore, and Bucky was an asshole  _ and _ a dragon. He was so lost, and it went beyond not understanding how to use his cell phone, it went down to the very fundamentals of what he had believed to be reality. 

END PHASE ONE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part Two, Chapter One, will be posted Wednesday. See ya then!


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